


The Shape of Him In the Starlight

by DarkBlue



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Character Development, Edging, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Massage, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Some Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:00:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23086681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkBlue/pseuds/DarkBlue
Summary: Dorian can't stop his back twitching. Bull notices, and offers to help.
Relationships: Female Lavellan/Cullen Rutherford, Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus
Comments: 41
Kudos: 182
Collections: Actually Adoribull Fic





	The Shape of Him In the Starlight

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-Dreadnought Iron Bull, Post Gull and Lantern Dorian. I did want to explain some of Bull's developing doubts about the Qun even before the Dreadnought plot. 
> 
> This got way too long, but did I make it multiple chapters? No. Why? Stubbornness.

“Again!” called Cullen.

The repetitive loud slapping of wood on wood. One, two, three, four, five-

“Again!”

One, two, three, four –

“How’s it going down there?” said at voice at Dorian’s elbow. He glanced down from the balcony at Skyhold to where Varric was watching the training session in the courtyard with amused hazel eyes.

“Oh, I believe the stick hitting is getting to be maximum efficiency,” said Dorian with a slight drawl. He backed up a little from the balcony when Bull’s head snapped up from 40 feet below them. Even at this distance he could see the bright white smile on the Qunari’s face.

“You should be careful,” Varric chuckled, following Dorian into the shade of the castle. “You carry a stick too you know. They might recruit you.”

“It’s a staff, I’ll have you know,” said Dorian with mock-haughtiness. “And if anything has gotten that close to me without me incinerating them, I hardly think hitting them with a thin wooden pole will save me.”

“Hey there’s something to be said about being hit with a thin wooden pole,” Varric winked. He paused. “Oh, that’s good. I’m going to have to put that in my book. The training session too. There’s something so…” he snapped his fingers silently to himself. “So _rhythmic_ about it, isn’t there?”

Dorian glared at him, and Varric beamed. They both knew Dorian heard it; it was one of the reasons he liked watching.

“Did you come here for me?” Dorian asked scathingly.

“Oh no,” Varric beamed. “To watch Cassandra beat someone else to a pulp for a change.”

“You know she’s never actually-“ Dorian began, but Varric cut him off.

“Not _yet_ , Sparkler. Not _yet._ Just you wait. The Seeker will have her pound of flesh.”

“You’ll have to feed the beast with terrible romance novels,” Dorian mocked, leaning with one hip against the cold stonework.

“That’s the plan.”

“Perhaps make her a character.”

Varric’s face twisted in horror, then tilted with a considering, ridiculous expression. “Hey, now there’s an idea. I’ll give her even _more_ scars, but the Seeker’s cheek scar to really make it obvious.”

“How filthy will you write the scenes?”

Varric smiled angelically: “Extremely.”

He paused.

“But she’s probably only into-“

“No,” said Dorian, his eyes pretending to scan the grounds for someone to save him from this embarrassing slip.

“Oh?”

“Ask Bull.”

“ _Oh?_ ”

“Not like that,” Dorian snapped his gaze back to Varric’s gleeful face. “He can sniff a guess off people a mile off.”

“You mean what they’re into?”

“It’s a drinking game we play.”

“How do you know if he’s right?”

“Depending how drunk people are, he usually asks them.”

“ _No_.” Varric sounded all too delighted. “I would like to play this game.”

Dorian, remembering what Bull had predicted about Varric, wrinkled up his face. “No, you wouldn’t.”

“ _Oh_ ,” said Varric, laughing. “Okay. Okay. That’s pretty good. Yeah. You’re right. I’ll talk to Bull. When he’s not sweating while hitting people with his pole,” and Varric winked lasciviously, sauntering away as Dorian pretended to be above the ribbing.

Above him, he saw the set of Orlesian glass doors open outwards together, and Vivienne in sparkling white and royal blue step onto her balcony.

She glanced down at him and smiled a tight-lipped smile of greeting. Before Dorian could motion to her, she had turned her shoulders back and escorted a guest onto the balcony. It was a visiting noble or other important guest Dorian couldn’t make out, and hovering at their elbow was Josephine.

Dorian couldn’t hear what she was saying, but could see her lips moving quickly.

 _She likes it soft_ , Bull’s voice drifted into his head. _All giving with Josie. Lots of candles and oils and massages. A real all afternoon affair. And she would make the prettiest noises. Always be surprised. A true romantic._

Dorian shook his head quickly, embarrassed to be caught with thoughts like that. His gaze skittered over Vivienne and before Bull’s predictions could catch up to him he fade-stepped quickly to the nearest entryway and took the stone flight of stairs downwards, his cheeks burning.

Bull didn’t need to say much about Vivienne, just one word.

_Ma’am._

Fuck.

Dorian didn’t feel comfortable with this information he had about one of his closest friends. Vivienne already wore a great deal of skin-tight outfits with pieces cut out. Even if Vivienne was rather callously cold about him behind his back, she was also cold to his face, so at least she was consistent. He shivered when he thought about why Iron Bull let Vivienne bully him into using a _title_ when addressing her.

_Fuck._

Dorian exited the shaded stairwell into the blazing sun and squinted, throwing a hand up against the light. He understood why Cole wore his enormous floppy hat, especially in the glaring mountain air.

“Again!” Cullen’s voice had to be wearing out.

_A standup guy. Thinks wanting to hold her wrists is shameful. Makes up for it with his tongue. He’s gotten very good with it._

_Andraste preserve us_ , Dorian fumed. He hated when Bull’s comments slithered their way lewdly into his brain even while doing the most innocent of tasks. Did he even understand how hard it was to stare at Cullen over their biweekly game of chess knowing what Bull had told him?

Cullen was in his huge black fur mantle, his face sweating in the sunlight as he walked up and down the front line of soldiers. Bull was drilling the left flank. Cassandra the right. Blackwall the left middle.

_Likes to go at it from behind. Not a talker. Quiet grunts._

Fuck.

There were about fifty soldiers in each column. Bull’s column had most of the fighters in the Chargers too, noticeable in the crowd without a uniform. Blackwall was drilling the slowest troops, and Dorian supposed it made sense because he was the most used to teaching farmers and fishers.

Lavellan was training the right middle next to Cassandra. She was not practicing with a polearm but with a greatsword as tall as she was. She was so slender that Dorian could catch glimpses of Cullen walking behind her, seeming bulky and slow in comparison to her quick, lithe form. So slender, yet so strong. The Iron Bull often made loud jokes about how well she handled a big sword, and Cullen’s ears turned red as he protested that there was no call for that, and he didn’t think that at all. He fooled no one, not even Lavellan, who usually threw her sword casually over her shoulder in a way that made Cullen turn his face into the dark fur stole at his own.

“Halt!” Cullen called, and Dorian watched the two hundred odd soldiers gulping for air. He waited as each of the four commanders dismissed their group, critiquing. Bull’s voice carried as he helpfully shoved at Skinner and Grim to get them to shape up.

Krem copied Bull’s actions behind his back, but with distorted faces and hip wiggling so that Grim burst out in high giggles so unlike him that everyone stopped and stared. Bull spun on Krem and dunked him in the rain barrel face-first as easily as he would have picked up a squirming cat.

Dorian finally felt it was time to intervene. Knowing they were being watched by the visiting noble and an anxious Josephine, he crossed to Bull’s side and lightly touched his arm.

“Hey,” Bull glanced down at him with a warm look on his face that made the Chargers boo and Dorian flap his hand at them to shoo them.

“Ungrateful little bastards,” he said in a crisp, carrying tone. “When I was the one who saved you!”

“You’re a decent sort,” Krem sputtered, finally having wriggled himself backwards from the barrel. He stood, dripping and rubbing at his hair, mock-glaring at Bull. “Jokes on you, Chief,” he said cheerfully. “It was getting awfully hot.”

“Shut up,” said Bull easily. “Or I’ll dunk you in ass first next time and your little knees will get wedged.”

Krem didn’t bother to dignify that with an answer and only stalked away primly, his eyes trained on a girl in Cassandra’s flank, his hands twitching at his side.

“That kid,” sighed Bull, but with the proud fondness of a brother.

“Hardly,” sniffed Dorian. “And you need to behave yourself. We have guests.”

Cullen, who had been hovering at Lavellan’s elbow – which was as much physical affection they showed in public – snapped his head up.

“What? Where?”

“On Vivienne’s balcony,” said Dorian. “No! Don’t _look_. We don’t want to seem stilted.”

As if by magic, Cullen’s easy familiarity with soldiers - and with walking - fled. He looked carved from wood, and moved with the jerkiness of a children’s toy.

Grumbling beneath his breath, Blackwall stomped off without another word, ending a conversation midsentence with an over eager recruit. Cassandra rushed over, glaring after Blackwall. Lavellan touched Cullen’s arm, a gesture that made Dorian glance at the small figure of Vivienne.

He couldn’t see her eyes, but could certainly feel them meeting his own. The Inquisitor was never cautioning with Cullen outside the inner circle. That meant this was an important visit.

“She’s the Keeper for the Lavellan Clan,” Dorian could hear her murmuring to Cullen. He drifted closer, Bull close behind him.

“It means a lot that she’s here. It’s a very long journey, and she must have traveled it alone.”

“What does this mean for us?”

Dorian shot a glance at Bull, but Bull was frowning at his salacious curiosity. Dorian almost squawked out loud when he felt the firm tug on his elbow drawing him away.

“But-” he began.

“You know what this means,” Bull said, his clear blue eye darting around, searching.

“What?” said Dorian petulantly.

“Sera,” said Bull grimly. “We’ve got to find her. And it’ll be easier with the both of us. Varric too, if you know where he is.”

Dorian winced. “Shit.”

“This is not the time for a prank. Lavellan isn’t usually caught up in the elf stuff, but it’s always weird when home comes to you.”

Dorian thought about the conversation Lavellan had forced him to have in the Gull & Lantern and nodded, his mouth set grimly.

“Let’s find Sera,” he said instead, and he tried not to think _she’ll play with anything: toys, ropes, tricks, and laugh her way through the whole thing like you’re wrestling. Probably doesn’t stop swearing when she’s close, but I bet she comes with a shout._

Fuck.

* * *

Dinner was a stilted affair. Lavellan hosted the Keeper of her clan at her right hand in the place of honor, but her face was painfully rigid. Her white violet Vallaslin that marked her forehead and down over her left eye looked cut into her tan skin. When she picked up her wine glass Vivienne reached a casual hand to her wrist and set it down to hide the tremor.

Sera was almost as unhappy. One of her legs was tied to Varric’s under the table, and she kept shifting annoyed in her seat, jerking Varric’s body as he was trying to fit his salad into his mouth. Solas was the only person who seemed unaffected and peppered the Keeper with genuine, nuanced questions that seemed to surprise her, given that he wasn’t Dalish.

Josephine, usually the diplomat and skilled at conversation, was having trouble. The Keeper’s experiences – or lack thereof – hardly overlapped with anything Josephine had experienced. Dorian himself had been such a shock and immediate disruption that Josephine had quickly banished him to the far end of the table to bracket Sera and avoid giving more offense. Bull sat across from him, the four of them watchful.

“It’s not like she’s a noble,” Sera whispered heatedly. “I just think it’d be funny, yeah? Because I’m an elf. And elfies think it’s funny to be all high and weird about other elfies.”

“Lavellan isn’t like that,” frowned Varric.

“Well not _her_ ,” Sera rolled her eyes. “Obviously. But you should _hear_ some of the stuff this woman made her-“

She yelped loudly because Bull’s extremely long and extremely hard foot had shot out and tapped her ‘lightly’ against the shin.

Vivienne and Leliana shot warning glances down the table. Dorian smiled forcibly back and caught Cullen’s eye. Cullen, never at ease in any large society to begin with, was as uncommunicative and awkward as Dorian had been his first day of preparatory school. It would have been almost painful to watch, if it hadn’t been so funny.

At his elbow, Cassandra was handling the situation masterfully. Which was to say, she was addressing the Keeper with her too-loud, carrying voice, asking difficult questions about religion, and generally ignoring the horrified looks she was getting from Solas and the cold ones from Vivienne. Leliana moved both her hands under the table and Cassandra began coughing, and mercifully fell silent.

The Keeper herself was an old woman, well into her sixth decade at the least. Her Vallaslin had been re-inked in gold upon the conferral of her status, and so she shone in the torchlight as she turned her head politely from Solas to Lavellan. She addressed a question to Cullen that Dorian couldn’t hear, but Cullen was so surprised at the direct address he dropped his eating knife under the table and had to dive for it, his face brilliant crimson.

“This is fun,” said Iron Bull in the tense silence on their end of the table, and Dorian laughed even as Sera soured.

Though it felt impossible, the evening did eventually end. Dorian quietly burned the ropes through binding Sera and Varric, and Sera bolted angrily from the table in a rattle of cutlery that unfortunately drew the Keeper’s eye. She seemed surprised to see another elf, and made to follow Sera. Solas hastily gripped one of her arms and launched into a longwinded question that seemed to annoy her.

“Excuse me,” Leliana said politely but carrying. “I have matters to attend in my study.” She slowed long enough in front of Dorian that he gratefully offered her his arm as escort.

“I’m going that way myself,” he lied easily. He hadn’t been, but any graceful escape was welcome. “May I walk you?”

Leliana smiled at him in a way that Dorian could recognize as being objectively beautiful and flattering. She threaded her gloved hand through the crook of his elbow and Dorian covered her hand with his own. Her hands were freezing. He sent a pulse of warmth into them.

“Thank you,” she said as he walked slowly with her – as if they both weren’t running from this interminable evening – to the staircase through Solas’ mural room.

“Thank _you_ ,” Dorian laughed. “I thought Cullen might die there and no one would notice for twenty minutes.”

“I was keeping my eye on him,” said Leliana, tinkling a laugh. Dorian remembered they called her the Nightingale for her sweet voice. He had never heard her sing, save once. The night of Haven’s attack. Lavellan’s miraculous survival even as she collapsed in the snow.

Dorian tried to shove that night out of his mind as he smiled and gave a short, courteous bow as the foot of the stairs to the third floor. Leliana nodded and went up alone to her birds. Dorian crossed to the window where his favorite chair nestled in a corner. He did not sit, but stood, staring out at the snow. Somewhere above his right kidney, a nerve in his back twitched a handful of times before it calmed down.

That was the night he realized what he had done. Leaving Tevinter to warn _strangers_ that –

Well. He had regretted it bitterly in the hours of fleeing Haven, slogging through snow in gear that wasn’t suited for it. Carrying dying men and women under one arm, promising them rest even as they both heard the lie. Sometimes dropping them where they fell and picking up someone else.

Chancellor Rodrick.

But when Leliana had sang – when they all had – Dorian had felt shivers erupt down his spine and something like awe had settled over him. He did believe in the Maker, for better or worse. He was rather on the out and outs with him, on account of making Dorian what he was and complicating everything, so he had never really seen the point in singing a “glorious noise” and all that nonsense.

Until the night in the mountains. When he was so sure he would die. That he had made the wrong choice, the stupid noble choice. Trying to play a hero. And he could only wish he was back on his estate, his father and all, eating hot flatbreads and getting his scalp massaged instead of freezing to death in the snow around a broken cart.

Then, when he had heard the Nightingale sing, hope had settled in him. That this might have been the right choice, after all. Dorian tried not to dwell on the fact that he himself hadn’t sang. Had only watched, impassive.

“Dorian?”

Dorian turned. It wasn’t anyone he particularly wanted to see. It was Cole, who had not been invited to the banquet on account of Lavellan being certain the Keeper would try to kill him on sight.

“Hello,” he said easily.

Cole crossed to the window, squinting his eyes against their reflections to peer out across the mountainous landscape. It was still strange to Dorian that Cole had a reflection at all.

“You can’t see it from here,” he said.

“What?”

“The place in the snow.”

“Cole,” sighed Dorian. “You should know better than to dig through people’s thoughts.”

“I wasn’t digging,” insisted Cole. “Sometimes it’s digging, but sometimes it’s like walking in a room and seeing the walls are green. You can’t not see it.”

Dorian let out a breath. “Yes, well, then you have to pretend you don’t see it.”

“Don’t see the wall color?”

“Metaphorically.”

“Your thoughts?”

“Yes.”

Cole was silent for a moment, processing. “People do this?” he asked, with careful emphasis on ‘people.’

Dorian felt a twinge in his stomach. The poor thing wanted so badly to be a person. Even if he wasn’t a person. “Yes,” he said slowly. “Sometimes people know things about each other, but we play a polite fiction and pretend not to know.”

“Lie?”

“Yes. Sometimes.”

“Why?”

“Because,” and Dorian paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts. Cole didn’t mind. Cole simply waited. “Because people like to be able to control what they tell people.”

“But sometimes you can see right away,” pressed Cole.

“Like when someone is upset,” guessed Dorian.

Cole nodded enthusiastically. “Especially then. It is very easy to see. The paint is splashed everywhere.”

For not a person, Dorian was suspicious of how good Cole was getting with metaphor.

“Yes,” he said, drawing it out. “When people are upset, the people who know them can tell. And sometimes they even know why.”

“Then why do they pretend?” asked Cole, his voice frustrated.

Spirits couldn’t _be_ frustrated, Dorian reminded himself. He only mimicked it very well.

Dorian wanted to say _I don’t know!_ and get Cole to leave him alone. But he quashed that particular thought as quickly as he could, replacing it with the feeling of _wanting to help_ , which Cole liked. He thought for another moment.

“People mostly like to pretend they have control over themselves and their lives.”

“But that’s not true,” protested Cole.

“And yet we want it to be true. So we pretend it is.”

“That doesn’t make sense!”

“You’ll have to take this one as a basic premise before understanding the rest.”

Cole was silent for a long moment, digesting.

“Alright,” he said carefully. “I will take the premise.”

“People want to be able to control themselves. They want to be able to tell people things in the way and when they want.”

“But-“

“I know,” said Dorian wearily. “It’s not possible.”

“Yes.”

“But they want it. _We_ want it that way.” He glanced at the stars out of the window. From his peripheral vision, Cole’s floppy hat was merely an inkblot blacking out where the stars should have shown through. His skin glowed a ghostly white where his hands tangled themselves in his tunic, working it into bunches.

“You don’t like it when I can see what’s wrong?” said Cole slowly.

“No,” said Dorian, still watching the starlight. He ignored Cole’s direct address of _you_. “We don’t. We want to pretend sometimes.”

“Why?” and Cole asked it so naturally for a moment Dorian thought he sounded like a young man, not yet twenty.

“Because pretending can make it feel like it’s not happening.”

“So if you…pretend you’re not sad…you think it will…make you not be sad?” Cole seemed to be having a very hard time with this concept.

“Yes.”

“But that doesn’t work!”

“I know.”

“Does everyone know?”

“Yes.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“We do it,” said Dorian after a moment, trying to ignore the way Cole kept asking him specifically. It was almost sweet, his overture in feeling Dorian’s mood while trying not to ask. “Because sometimes when you’re sad, people treat you differently. And to pretend not to be sad, you need other people to treat you the same, to make the pretend feel more real.”

“But the other people know you are sad,” countered Cole. “It’s not the same. Then you can both feel the pretend, and that’s pointless.”

“Sometimes they don’t know.”

“They don’t?” Cole seemed amazed at this idea that other people could not know something another person was feeling.

“Sometimes, at the beginning especially, or if you don’t know someone well, people can pretend quite well.”

Cole was silent a long moment. “Yes,” he agreed slowly. “Yes. Sometimes that is true.”

They stared at each other in the darkness, and Dorian realized he hadn’t lit the lamps in the library. With the same thought the lamps sprung to life. Cole blinked at him, his eyes not even dilating. Dorian had to remind himself his eyes were hardly real.

“I’m going now,” Cole said.

“Thank you for letting me know,” said Dorian politely. It had taken weeks of repetition to ask Cole to warn people before he popped out.

Dorian blinked in the warm glow and glanced at the side table. He didn’t need to be in the library actually, but it seemed too early for bed. But he felt he should leave in case there was an after-dinner tour.

When he glanced back up to check if Cole might be interested in learning to play chess, he was gone.

Dorian sighed.

The nerve in his back began to twitch.

* * *

Dorian rolled his neck in a tight circle, wincing. The tranquil research assistant Helisma stared at him.

“Your neck is bothering you?” She even made questions sound like facts. He knew it wasn’t even concern, only social etiquette, and that made him grind his teeth. He tried not to point fingers, since Tevinter was extremely controversial and problematic, but the idea of making a mage tranquil was so barbaric to him that it was difficult for him to speak on the subject civilly. He treated Helisma as well as he could because he had asked her once if she had chosen to be tranquil. Her blunt, unfiltered account of how it had been forced upon her had given Dorian nightmares of faceless templars holding _him_ down. That had gotten all twisted up with lust too, and the whole resulting mess was shelved in the back of his head never to be dealt with.

It was how he successfully navigated most problems.

“It’s only because we’ve been reading for so long,” Dorian said brightly. She couldn’t detect sarcasm well now, not able to impute emotions under the surface without facial recognition.

She nodded. “This is true. I stretch as directed every morning and evening. I have noticed it keeps me less stiff in my work.”

Dorian sighed inwardly but politely thanked her nonetheless.

“I’m going to get dinner,” he announced. He paused. Winced internally. Then offered: “Would you care to join me?”

“No thank you,” said Helisma. She always said this. Dorian always offered anyway. He knew without a trace of irony that she could not care about being rude, nor care about joining him. Her life made him sad, and he wrenched his mind away from it as he stood, wincing. The nerve in his back was twitching wildly under the waistband of his leather pants. It had been flickering on and off all day and was driving him mad.

He knew he had most likely pinched a nerve. But he had also broken down and looked up common medical ailments that involved nerves twitching. It had been thoroughly terrifying. The options included stress (ha), lack of sleep ( _ha_ ) to severe neuromuscular failure. Dorian had not laughed at that, but felt sick.

The back of his mother’s forearm had twitched like this.

He pushed that back from where it was teetering on a shelf and went to find the Chargers at the Herald’s Rest. The tavern was even more crowded than it usually was. Luckily, Bull practically lived in it when he wasn’t on campaign, and Dorian was haled with welcome by the group. He squeezed in next to Rocky who nudged him with his elbow to give him room, and the barmaid brought him a plate.

He could feel Bull’s eyes on him. The Iron Bull always knew when something was wrong, and Dorian wasn’t sure what it was about his face that might give it away. He wished he did know, and thought briefly of his conversation with Cole. It would help him hide better.

He concentrated on not exactly _shoveling_ his food but working through it steadily enough that he successfully fended off three attempts at conversation from Krem, Skinner, and even Varric when he joined them. Skinner’s question was unreasonably bloody, and Dorian was glad he had been drinking so that he could hide his grimace as the rest of the Chargers ribbed her good-naturedly back into silence.

A boot nudged his shin the way a horse might nudge someone. Dorian grimaced and shifted in his chair, yanking his eyes up long enough to make eye contact with Bull, who was frowning inquiringly at him. Dorian shook his head imperceptibly and Bull nodded, placated, calling for another round for everyone.

Dorian knew when he left Bull was cutting his eyes toward the stairs, telling Dorian to go wait in his bedroom. Just as obtusely, Dorian pretended not to see, and left by way of the door, smiling absently at everyone and waiting when Varric told him to stop.

“Can I?” Varric asked grandly, holding the door open for Dorian.

Dorian smiled. “Of course. Do you need an arm back to your room?” He meant it as a joke, referring to the escape he and Leliana had made only the day before, but Varric looked awkward for a moment and Dorian cursed himself.

Varric was a good sort, but hadn’t met many mages interested in men. He had told Dorian in colorful and endearingly funny terms about another mage who was a committed campaigner for the justice for mages. After a longwinded tale, he had ended it with a thoughtful: “I don’t think you and Blondie would get on very well actually.”

“A joke,” Dorian said, and Varric waved him off.

“It’s my fault,” he said. “I always try to keep up with the Chargers, and always fail miserably. And no thanks, even though I’m stinking drunk, I’m sure if you point me in the right direction I’ll find my way.”

Dorian laughed, mollified. On more than one occasion he had found Varric snoozing by the fireplace in the Great Hall having never made it to the room he held next to Vivienne. They both overlooked the courtyard, through a corridor that connected to her balcony.

Dorian left Varric at the turning to his room and then made his way deeper into the inner recesses of the castle. Unhappily, he was not drunk, and his back was twitching. He opened the door to his dark room. He grimaced and cracked his neck. It popped six times in rapid succession and he winced. 

“Doesn’t sound good,” said Iron Bull from behind him, and Dorian yelped and jumped straight up, the unlit fireplace simultaneously roaring to life.

“Easy,” Bull held out his hands, even as a grin broke across his face. “I thought you heard me.”

“No,” said Dorian grumpily. Bull could move surprisingly softly when he wanted to.

“Why didn’t you go up to my room?”

“Your bed is terrible,” said Dorian bluntly, palming at the back of his neck with a pout that softened Bull.

He crossed the space to Dorian and laid a big warm hand on the back of Dorian’s neck, facing him. Dorian broke out in goosebumps and leaned into Bull, tilting his forehead against his chest.

“Hey,” Bull tried to get him to stand up. “You gotta turn around if you want me to-“

“No,” mumbled Dorian against his chest. His arms had gone around Bull’s waist.

Iron Bull huffed a laugh but his arms encircled Dorian back and after a moment he lowered hot breath to Dorian’s hair.

“What’s all this about?” Bull studied him, and Dorian tried not to squirm, even as he tilted his face upwards, hoping for a kiss. “You good?”

Dorian nodded, feeling the lie stick to his face even as it stuck in his throat.

Bull’s face softened. “What’s wrong?”

Dorian felt a sudden and overwhelming urge to flee. He ducked his head back into Bull, unreasonably wanting comfort.

“I’m just tired,” it wasn’t even technically a lie.

“Come over to the bed.”

Dorian mock-scowled. Bull always became possessive when Dorian was hurting. A mother hen crowding beneath her enveloping wings.

Dorian let himself be towed towards the bed in the circle of Bull’s arms, but when they stood at the edge of it, Dorian shifted uncomfortably. He could smell the sweat and stale beer and turned his face away, stifled.

“Hey.” Bull was trying to catch his eye. Dorian hated when he did that. For a big Qunari, it shouldn’t be possible for him to bend and angle himself into Dorian’s line of sight.

Dorian untangled himself from Bull and took a step back, his legs tapping against the bed. It seemed unusually childish to want affection from Bull even while he denied him any real intimacy.

“Just tired,” Dorian held fast against that smalt blue eye, it was a clear glass in the firelight, ringed in indigo. It flickered with something undefinable. “Can we just go to bed?” he asked lightly, running his fingers over Bull’s chest. He liked to trace the crisscrossing pattern of scars there.

Bull stilled his hands by covering them with one of his own, still studying Dorian’s face. _Yes, that was the exact word_ , Dorian mused as he stared back at him. _Studied_. Like he would have flicked his gaze across the pages of an antique book, taking in the quality of the paper, the yellowing of the pages as well as the content of the words. He realized Bull had let go of his hands, and he blushed.

“You don’t have to stay,” he added quickly. “If you have someone to spend it with.”

He didn’t try to curtail Bull’s other exploits. It seemed unfair, somehow, to keep the Iron Bull all to himself.

Bull’s face flashed a surprised look followed by an something Dorian rarely saw on him: hurt.

“What’s wrong?” now Iron Bull was being more direct, and Dorian also hated that.

“Just-”

“Tired, I know.”

“Well, it’s true.”

“Then let me get you into bed.”

Dorian half-laughed. “Your seduction quality is really going downhill.”

“Dorian.”

“I’m only teasing.”

“I’m not.”

Dorian sighed, running a finger through his thick black hair. It was stiff with dirt and grease, and he grimaced. He didn’t want Bull to-

“I don’t care about that,” Iron Bull said, easily reading his expressions.

Dorian cursed his face for being so open. It was a habit from Tevinter, where his expressions were weapons he used against his father because it was funny.

“Just get undressed,” growled Bull, and there was enough of a suggestion in his lowered voice that it sent a thrill up Dorian’s spine.

Dorian smiled half-heartedly. Maybe it would be better to let Bull distract him. He was very good at it. He pulled on the buckles of his top and hesitated at his trousers.

“What is it?”

Dorian looked away, embarrassed. They had never had problems in this department before. “I’m tired,” he said again. “I can’t-”

Bull waved a hand. “Obviously I can’t play with you like this. You look like I might slap you.”

“I might like that,” Dorian said with a raised eyebrow.

Bull studied him. “Another time,” he said at last, and Dorian cursed his open face again.

Instead, he changed, suddenly shy, with his back to Bull into soft loose pants for bed. While his back was turned, he could feel the muscle over his kidney twitching spasmodically.

Iron Bull frowned. Dorian couldn’t see him do it, but the air certainly became darker.

“What’s that?”

“What’s what?” Dorian asked lightly, pretending not to notice.

“Your back.”

“Yes, well I haven’t been tramping around with Lavellan lately, I’m bound to be a little soft-“

“Dorian,” and Bull had crossed the space between them and was running a large hand over Dorian’s suddenly very sensitive skin. Belatedly, his body responded and he scowled down. Not _now._

“It’s just a twitch,” said Dorian lightly, but knew the lie for what it was, even if Bull didn’t snort. Dorian had felt his shoulders tense up even as Bull’s big hand curled around the curve of his side, probing at the spot.

“Looks like you pinched a nerve.” Bull was something of a physician on account of so often being the patient. Stitches hated him for it.

“Yes, yes,” said Dorian airily, waving it off. His back twitched spasmodically as he wrenched himself away. He gave his face time to settle by crawling into his bed.

Bull was frowning thoughtfully to himself, rubbing his fingers together like he could still feel Dorian’s side. “How long has this been going on?”

“Hmm?”

Iron Bull sat on the bed, looking at him seriously.

Dorian finished settling the covers around him and looked up beneath his lashes.

“Don’t,” said Bull shortly. “I’m not that stupid.”

Dorian blew out a noisy, annoyed breath. “It would be easier if you were.”

“Easier,” agreed Bull, consenting to crawl up the sheets to kiss Dorian senseless. He smirked when Dorian stared almost cross eyed at the ceiling half a minute later. “But much less fun.”

“Are you sleeping?” Dorian asked pointedly when Bull settled next to him, careful not to knock his horns against the pillows, though there was no saving the headboard now.

“No,” said Bull. “I’m thinking.”

“Thinking?” mocked Dorian lightly. “My, the Bull thinks. What is the world coming to? And I thought ancient magisters were the strangest-“

“You little shit,” said Bull, pulling a pillow from beneath his back and clubbing Dorian rather too hard across the face.

Dorian gasped, then laughed, lunging forward before his back began twitching violently and his hands fell limp on Bull’s chest as he tensed his jaw.

“Dorian?”

“It’s fine. Just a pinched nerve, like you said.”

“I also asked how long.”

“How long what?”

“Don’t be stupid.”

“Well if you’re going to be clever, one of us should be the stupid one.”

“Dorian.”

“Yes?”

“Your back.”

Dorian turned childishly on his hip. “You can scratch it, if you want,” he said, presenting it unmarred.

“You’re insufferable.”

“The word derives from unbearable suffering,” Dorian’s voice was beaming, but muffled into his pillow.

Bull frowned, and Dorian could feel it again. He had a sinking feeling he wasn’t as good at pretending as he thought.

A big warm hand laid itself on his hip and he jerked violently. Iron Bull sucked in a surprised breath. Dorian had never flinched before. Not from him.

“I’m sorry,” Dorian said in a small, annoyed voice. “It’s just been two days. And it-“

“Two days?”

Dorian was silent a moment. His mother’s arm had started twitching. And it had gone on for months. But then they had found out the truth. Degenerative nerve endings. Even when she was in her wheeled chair. Even when her face began to sag because she couldn’t hold an expression. Even then that damnable twitch in her arm pulsed, long after she couldn’t move it.

It was the messiest, most painful way to die Dorian had ever seen, and he was a necromancer.

He pushed thoughts of her away. The disease wasn’t passed down through blood. They had checked.

But still…it had been a freak coincidence. A trick of fate. A –

“Dorian,” Bull’s voice was a blend of surprised and gentle. “You’re shaking.”

“I’m fine,” snapped Dorian, and the lie was so painfully obvious he laughed even as he shook his head.

The Iron Bull was silent a long moment, rubbing his big hand up and down Dorian’s back. Then he asked: “You want me to see if I can unjam it?”

Dorian twisted his neck around, his face painfully hopeful even as he schooled his features. “If you like,” he said indifferently, holding his breath. On all previous occasions, Dorian had refused any sort of massage from Bull, saying he didn’t like them. Bull had only snorted and contented himself with pressing Dorian’s body for pleasure.

Iron Bull gazed unblinking for a moment down at Dorian, and Dorian felt his face slowly suffuse with a blush. Sometimes Bull looked at him with such scrutiny, such tenderness that it was like –

 _A lover?_ His mind supplied. He quashed that thought. They shared a bed, but they weren’t in _love_. Iron Bull probably wasn’t capable of amorous love. He had proven himself, of course, the equal to filial love for his Chargers, as a mentor and protector and brother. Dorian turned his chin back to the pillow, both to get away from Bull’s scrutiny and his own thoughts.

He felt Bull’s hands on his shoulders. He forced his body to stay limp and pliant as Bull turned him onto his stomach.

“Does it hurt?’

“What?”

“Hurt?”

“No.”

Another thunderous silence, and Dorian buried his face deeper into the pillow. He tried to shove his mother’s illness more securely on its storage shelf. The weight in his mind shifted, and her funeral slid out. It had been a disaster. Dorian had been furious. He had thought his father would be also; the singer was terrible, the speakers weak, and many guests obviously hadn’t known his mother well. But his father had only smiled and said that the affair was well carried off. As if that was the most important thing. Whether the food was good. How many people had come.

Bull used a hand under Dorian’s shoulder blade to anchor him as he pressed his thumb into Dorian’s twitching back. Dorian yelped aloud in spite of himself, jerking up against Bull’s broad, steadying hand. He went limp again against the pillow when Bull slowly drew his thumb away.

“Oh-“ said Dorian, but stopped. The outside of his thigh began to twitch.

A beat.

“Huh,” said Bull, and Dorian flipped up on an elbow.

“Huh?” he asked, his voice edged. “What does that mean?”

“That shouldn’t have happened,” said Bull thoughtfully, pulling down the tops of Dorian’s pants to look at the shivering, twitching skin.

Dorian felt sick. That shouldn’t have happened. Not a pinched nerve then.

He tried to control his breathing. His fear. He was going to lose his whole life like she had. He was going – _No_ , his mind was suddenly very clear. No, he wouldn’t let that happen. He would do something before that point.

“Dorian?” Iron Bull had something in his voice Dorian had never heard before, and he was staring at Dorian with one calm eye even as his lips were white against his face. “Please talk to me.”

Fear, Dorian realized. He was scaring Bull.

He dropped his face into the pillow and shook his head.

Iron Bull was silent a long moment before letting out a shaky breath, his hand absently rubbing Dorian’s back. Dorian hated him in a flash. Still comforting. Still giving. Even when he was scared. Dorian didn’t deserve someone like him. He was –

Well he knew what he wasn’t.

“What was supposed to happen?” he asked finally, his voice brittle.

“If it had been a regular pinched nerve,” said Bull slowly, his hand stopped in the middle of Dorian’s back as he held him down quietly, without thinking about it. It made Dorian feel safe.

“If?”

“It shouldn’t have jumped down to your leg.”

“A disease, then?” asked Dorian with a mocking derision to his voice that was so desperately close to teetering over the edge he had to shut his teeth against it.

“No,” said Iron Bull slowly, rubbing the base of one horn. “I actually think it’s something else.”

This time Dorian flipped all the way over, giving his arm mutely to Bull to pull him upright. Now he was sitting close and his face was painfully hopeful again. “Something else?’

Iron Bull tipped his head, considering. “Were you afraid of it being a disease?”

“No,” lied Dorian quickly.

Bull grunted, but did not push.

Dorian half wished he would, just so he had someone to fight with, but quelled that selfish, ridiculously extravagant instinct as being just as monstrous as his father.

Even as he sat cross legged, he could feel the twitching in the back of his thigh and ground his teeth. “What is it, then?” he asked desperately.

“You won’t like it,” said Bull with a crooked grin.

“Why?” asked Dorian quickly. “Is there something wrong with me?”

“No more than usual.”

Dorian swallowed. He could not even bring himself to bat the low ball Bull had tossed his way. Bull’s forehead creased in a frown at that.

“Dorian,” he said quietly. “You’re…”

“Scaring you?” said Dorian, and his voice was too high, mocking again. Vicious.

The Iron Bull was silent a moment. Then, because he was always, always, always the bigger man: “Yes.”

“Good,” said Dorian, though it wasn’t good at all. He tried to laugh and it came out strangely flat. “Tell me what’s always been wrong with me.”

Iron Bull’s face creased in all the wrong places, and Dorian stared hard at the fireplace. The brief flash he had lit when Bull had startled him had flared out. Now the hearth was a pile of half burnt cinders. Though there wasn’t enough wood to sustain it, he lit the fire with a thought. The flames roared halfway up the fireplace and Dorian cursed himself mentally. If Bull hadn’t guessed he was upset – and he was doing an admittedly poor job hiding it – then using magic linked to his emotions wasn’t helping.

“That’s not what I said.” Bull was watching him carefully. Dorian could tell from the corner of his eye. He also knew Bull was pretending to watch the fire too. It was sickening.

Dorian realized he was spoiling for a fight, keyword _spoiling_. Everything about him felt like it was curling up inside him, shriveling any reason why Bull might want to stick around. He wanted to lash out, but the thought of being seen as a selfish, pathetic mess was enough to keep his jaw working tightly against itself.

Bull put a warm hand on one of Dorian’s crossed knees and Dorian jumped.

Bull looked hurt, and Dorian cursed himself again. That was twice. Twice he had flinched.

“Dorian, will you-

“No.”

“No. I didn’t think so.”

Dorian laughed. It didn’t sound like laughter.

“This…this is what I think,” said Bull slowly, keeping his hands in plain sight, and not on Dorian. Dorian hated that he felt he had to be careful. What was _wrong_ with him? Bull was his friend. He cared for him – more deeply than he cared to admit.

“You tend to…shove all your emotions.”

This time Dorian’s bark of laughter was genuine, and Bull’s planed shoulders relaxed.

“I know, I’m sorry,” said Dorian fondly, glad for the broken tension and placing his hand in Iron Bull’s upturned one on his lap. Bull looked pleased.

“Well that’s the first step,” he teased.

“Admitting when I’m an idiot?” Dorian smiled.

“Maybe.”

“Oh, _that’s_ kind. You’re supposed to say, _oh not at all_.”

“Well.”

“Hmm.”

“Well, I mean, that’s half the problem.”

Dorian’s laughter stuttered. “What?”

Bull looked frustrated how to start. “Do you know when you get very angry and your shoulders tense up and your breathing gets short?”

“Yes, I believe I am familiar with the concept of anger,” said Dorian dryly.

“And then you kill something and that tension gets worked out of you.”

Dorian paused. This, he was less familiar with. Before Haven, he hadn’t used his magic to fight, it had been purely academic.

“I’m telling you what I do,” Bull clarified, and Dorian relaxed and nodded.

“Well, when you don’t do that…”

“It goes away…more slowly?” hazarded Dorian.

“Not exactly.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You know your body feels what you feel,” said Bull holding his hands out and trying to link two points. “You’re angry, and your body is angry.”

“Of course.”

“But I don’t just mean at the time you get angry.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“Well,” said Bull unwillingly, “When you…when you go through intense emotions – “

“Is this a puberty talk?” teased Dorian. “Because I’ll have you know, my poor manservant already broached this topic with me, oh, fifteen years ago-“

Bull blew out a breath, and Dorian took his hand again.

“I’m sorry,” he said, ignoring the way his skin was twitching on the back of his leg. “You were saying?”

“I’m trying to say… you don’t… I like to kill stuff, when I’m mad, right?”

Dorian nodded.

“And you like to…”

Dorian stared at him blankly.

“Right,” said Bull, as if he had answered. “You tend to take all your stress and anger, and … and unhappiness - ”

“ _Unhappiness_?”

Bull nodded, looking unhappy himself.

“But I’m not _unhappy_!” Dorian protested.

“And you’re telling me you had a good evening tonight?”

“The night’s still young,” said Dorian, trying to tease some flirtation into the conversation. He tugged his hands away to bunch into the sheets the way he knew Bull liked.

“Dorian.”

“What?”

“You take every bad feeling and just…shelve it somewhere.”

Dorian stilled.

“Well,” said Iron Bull slowly, his fingers tentatively reaching back for Dorian’s hand. He picked it up, limp and unresisting. “It’s not just a mental thing. All that stuff you feel physically…you do shove it _somewhere_. You tense up, never relax your muscles, and then they form a knot. Then you shove _that_ down and put new tense knots on top of it, and basically now you’re all tangled up. Having a nerve that twitches and jumps down to another part of your body means you’re at maximum capacity, if you know what I mean.”

Dorian only stared at him. “No,” he said faintly waspish. “I don’t know what you mean. That’s ridiculous.”

“Why?” asked Bull patiently, his thumbs skating light circles on the back of Dorian’s hand. It made Dorian feel things he wasn’t ready to admit and he snatched his hand away, ignoring the third time he had hurt the Iron Bull that night.

“Because,” Dorian said, nursing his pride and uninjured hand alike. “That’s ridiculous.”

“Why?”

“Because…because it’s just…just a body,” he fumbled.

“And?”

“Stop saying single words, it’s stupid.”

“Why- okay, sorry, that one was on me.”

Dorian stared at his thumb instead of answering, peeling at a bit of skin by the nail. “Because,” he said to his cuticle. “It just is. You can’t just shove real memories into your muscles.”

“Yes you can.”

“No you can’t.”

“Yes-“

“No!”

“Why do you think people meditate?” Iron Bull asked, as if he was genuinely curious. “People need a few inches of breathing room from themselves sometimes.”

Dorian stared at him, amazed. No one had ever explained to him that was what meditation was for. People had always said it was a part of magic.

“You meditate, right?” Bull pressed. “I’ve seen you.”

Dorian drew himself up haughtily. “Of course.” Meditation was an imperative part of learning magic, and one Dorian was _excellent_ at faking.

“Maybe it would help give you a little space.”

“Hmm.”

“Look, there’s a dawn meditation every morning on the battlements,” said Bull easily, as if relieved to have finally introduced the idea he had been dreading.

For good reason, Dorian seethed. “Dawn?”

“I’ll wake you in the morning,” Bull promised.

“Oh no,” said Dorian. “You can’t snore all night in here and get me up at _dawn_.”

Bull smiled angelically. “Why? Do you need the space?”

Dorian ground his teeth. His leg was still twitching uncontrollably. Iron Bull had trapped him, damn it. He was too clever by half.

"Maybe," Dorian admitted. 

Bull nodded seriously. He still leaned into Dorian, sitting forlornly cross-legged in the middle of his bed. "Good night," he said simply, kissing his sweaty brow. "I'll see you in the morning."

Dorian half smiled. “This was interesting,” he said sardonically. “Thanks for this very _instructional_ session about feelings.”

“Good _night_ Dorian,” Bull groused from the doorway.

Dorian felt a stupid surging of affection in his throat then, for someone teasing him in the darkness, and he slithered down between the sheets with a tiny: “Night,” as Bull shut the door behind him.

Dorian turned on the side with the twitching muscle, trying to stop it with weight alone. He squeezed his eyes shut in the darkness as the fireplace finally burned through the cinders and collapsed silently into ash.

Internally, he stood in front of his mental shelves, staring at the one holding the rows and rows of memories from his mother's illness and his father's obsession with appearance. Then he shook himself, opened his eyes, re-closed his eyes, and tried to sleep. 

It took hours, but he eventually managed to trick his mind into it. The nightmares were vivid, and Dorian walked the Fade warily until morning.

* * *

It wasn’t even _daylight_ properly. It was _grey_. Grey was still a perfectly decent hour to come home from a party. That was _night_. The stars were still _out_. It was _horrible._

Dorian wanted to lean against the freezing stone of the wall and theatrically groan for a solid fifteen seconds, but he knew Lavellan wouldn’t like it with her Keeper there.

There were several other insane members of the Inner Circle who apparently frequented _daily_ morning meditation. Bull was there, of course, chatting with Blackwall. Dorian supposed it made sense for the Warden. Lavellan was at Cullen’s elbow. Cullen led it, for some reason, which was infuriating to Dorian that he had never once mentioned it over a game of chess, and then made him even grumpier that he had mentioned it to Iron Bull during sparring. Cassandra was there, because the Seeker led a life that frankly Dorian was glad he didn’t. Solas was there too, of course, but Vivienne wasn’t, so Dorian felt it considerably unfair that he was supposed to go just because “he was a mage.” He thought about Vivienne replete in her elaborate pillow fortress of a bed, each pillow either snow white or cobalt blue. He imagined her dark head _smugly smiling_ in her sleep and he ground his teeth.

“Okay,” said Cullen, clapping gloved hands together. “Let’s get seated. I want to be in place before the sun comes up.”

Dorian caught the Keeper nodding significantly at Lavellan, who blushed when she thought the rest of them were busy settling in three rows facing East. Dorian was at the back, which suited him perfectly. Bull was on his right. Solas had his back to him, which Dorian had planned, as Solas as the only other mage besides the Keeper would be able to tell he was faking the whole thing. Luckily, the three – Lavellan, Cullen, and the Keeper – were seated in a row at the front.

“Raise your arms,” said Cassandra into the sudden silence, and Dorian belatedly copied everyone else stretching their arms towards the sky. His back popped erratically from his cross-legged position and he stuck his tongue out at Bull when he smirked his way.

“And fall,” said Cassandra, letting her arms drift out to the sides and settle in her lap.

“Breathe in,” said Cullen, taking up the thread.

Dorian breathed in.

“Breathe out.”

He waited for the others to close their eyes and then he did as well.

The thing about meditation was that his brain was just _so very busy_. It was extremely hard to not think. He had once had a mage instructor tell him to regard thoughts like passing fish in an aquarium: to acknowledge them and let them swim away. That was the stupidest thing Dorian had ever heard. How did one let a thought “drift past.” Thoughts were words or feelings. They were _there_ all the time. It wasn’t some sort of side show.

Dorian realized from the way Bull was sniffing noisily that he was moving too much. He stilled.

He didn’t really like being alone with his thoughts. It was sort of like being in a very large old bookshop with tottering shelves full of archive boxes and jam jars and satchels and things just hastily stuffed out of sight without any wrappings at all.

Only the bookstore was _moving_ like a ship on an ocean, and it was all Dorian could do to run back and forth and slam things back onto tipping shelves before they fell or burst open. It was all very tiring. Much easier to read books and make jokes and take sleeping draughts.

He did _try_ to meditate. He wasn’t sure if he was doing it right at all. There were the thoughts he had in words: _this is stupid, my ass hurts, my thigh is still twitching, my hair is greasy, I need to take a bath, I wonder if Blackwall bathes in the stables, Blackwall naked, Blackwall’s penis, big mistake. Big? Not sure. Could go either way. No, not Blackwall. He’s just the one way. Why am I still thinking about this? Maker it’s as bad as Solas. Solas naked. Solas’ - damn it. The wind is cutting. My hair is itchy. My mustache has too much gel from yesterday. It probably looks positively crunchy. Why is leather so chafing? Andraste’s ass the buckles get_ very _cold on my pants. I need more socks. How does one acquire socks? Do I have to ask Bonny Sims to procure them? Is that beneath Josephine? Probably beneath Josephine. Should I ask the quartermaster? He’s an eager young thing. I thought about tipping him but – oh that’s right, the other girl who was in the wrong place with someone was ripped apart by demons in the blast at Haven. Oh, best not go_ there _._

Before he could spin off into the litany of Haven and that terrible day, the rest of his unspoken thoughts caught up milliseconds later all at once: _cold, pain, itching, frustration, itching, movement, stiffness, cold, interest, cold, interest, disgust, curiosity, laughter, uncontrollable laughter, disgust, cold, freezing, dirty, disgust, discomfort, stiff, shifting, itching, twitching, soreness, stiffness, cold, itching, sighing g–_

“Dorian,” Dorian cracked a guilty dark eye open. Bull was frowning at him.

“Shh,” said Dorian loftily. “I’m meditating. You’ll disturb the others.”

“Solas put down a circle spell around us before we started. I asked him to in case this happened.”

“A circle spell? What kind? Why didn’t I feel it?” demanded Dorian. Then, belatedly: “In case what happened?”

“It’s just a silencing spell,” said Bull impatiently. “So I can talk to you without you ruining meditation.”

“I’m not _ruining_ it,” Dorian said indignantly. “I’m meditating myself! You’re the one blabbing.”

“You’re not meditating,” snorted Bull. “You’re shifting and sighing so much I thought you might have eaten the meat pot from the Herald’s Rest.” Cabot’s nominal “chili” did induce a great deal of gas.

Dorian flushed up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied. “I’m very relaxed.”

“You’re such a liar.”

Dorian scrunched up his face. “Is it because I didn’t cast a stillness spell on myself? I should have. I forgot. I’m sorry, you can take down the barrier. I’ll be good and cast it now.”

“ _Dorian_ ,” said Bull, with a rising tone to his voice that gave Dorian a thrill and a flutter in his stomach. Bull usually used the warning in different circumstances. _Damn._

“What?” he asked innocently.

“You shouldn’t have to spell yourself into _pretending_ to meditate.”

“I am meditating!”

“Your head is so busy I can _hear_ it.”

“Through the sighing.”

“And the shifting and wanting to scratch and moving and itching and _damn it,_ Dorian, you said you meditated before.”

“I have! All my life!”

“You’ve been faking it all your life?”

Dorian wrinkled up his face at the obvious entendre, and Bull snorted, rolling his eyes.

“Now?”

“Well you should have heard what I was thinking-“

“If Solas hadn’t spelled us, _everyone_ would have heard what you were thinking, you were doing it so loud!”

“That’s not true.”

“You would have embarrassed Lavellan.”

“Then you shouldn’t have brought me,” snapped Dorian.

“Why?” said Bull, with a twisting smile hooking up one side of his face. “I thought you meditated your whole life?”

“I’m faking it, okay?”

“Obviously,” Bull rolled his eyes. “How have you gotten away with it this long?”

“I’m very good at faking it!”

“You hear these, right?” Bull asked after a beat, and Dorian laughed sourly.

“Ha, you are a wit,” he said scathingly.

“Well, good at faking it,” said Bull with something dark to his tone. “A challenge then.”

“No,” said Dorian immediately. “This is terrible. I don’t know _what_ people get out of this. Itchy ass and tingly toes. This is complete garbage.”

Iron Bull sniggered even as Solas caught movement from the corner of his closed eye. He turned around and frowned and Bull and Dorian, who both cracked up with laughter even as he, dignified and stiff as a poker, turned back to face the front. Next to him and in front of Bull, Cassandra ignored them, though Dorian saw the corners of her eyes tighten.

“Come on,” he wheedled to Bull. “I’m starving and I’m bored, and I’m clearly terrible at this. Let’s go.”

“What about yoga?”

“What about it?”

“We can try that.”

Dorian rolled his eyes. “No.”

“Have you ever tried it?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And if I liked it would we be arguing about it on a freezing wall at the ass crack of the morning?”

Solas cracked an eye again and Dorian had the sudden suspicion that their silence circle wasn’t _quite_ as private as Bull might have thought.

Dorian stood huffily, wiping the seat of his pants even as Bull stood stiffly, taking the arm Dorian held out without shame as he let the blood circulate back through his bad knee.

Giggling, they both made their way down the stone stairs that led out to the field surgeon’s tents.

“I’m starving,” Dorian said grandly. “Breakfast, and going back to bed?”

“Lazy bones,” said Bull fondly. “Yes to breakfast, but after I’ll be getting the Chargers up with my favorite song.”

The Iron Bull’s favorite song was a full out war scream. Dorian had seen him bellow it six inches from the ear of Stitches, who had screamed, punched Bull in the face, and then stammered apologies as Bull and Krem both roared with laughter. Dorian had also seen him try to repeat the stunt with Grim, who had only rolled his eyes and out of bed together.

Bull hadn’t tried it on Grim again.

“Why don’t you like yoga?” pressed Bull as they threaded their way down the sleepy castle stairs to the kitchens. The kitchens, at least, were alive with bustle, which stopped dead in its tracks upon seeing two of the Inner Circle. The cook shooed them out into the half-dilapidated eating hall still abandoned by everyone save a wandering Lavellan on her way down to the cells. Somehow, the cook scrounged up a table and chairs for them while the kitchen girls, blushing around Bull, brought out the food.

“It’s not fun,” said Dorian, rather petulantly. “The stretches feel good, but it’s a lot of standing around and _thinking_.”

“You mean it’s meditation with slightly more movement?” said Bull dryly.

“Now that you mention it.”

“That’s because it is. The stretching is to busy your mind just enough that it can become calm.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Well you’re also stretching out the trauma areas in your body.”

“The _what?”_

“The shelves where you’ve shoved things,” Bull clarified.

Dorian glanced at him sidelong as he reached for the plate of toast that had just been delivered. He had never actually told Bull about the shelves, and his guesses were uncanny in their accuracy.

“I think that’s a load of –“ Dorian began.

Bull barked his booming laugh. It was an old pun, and one Dorian only dragged out when he was too tired to be wittier.

“I’m serious,” Bull said, sobering even as he winked cheerfully at a girl Dorian was positive he’d already tipped at least twice. “People can get emotional stretching parts of themselves they usually keep tight.”

“Wink,” said Dorian in a flat, bored tone.

Bull grunted in acknowledgment but shrugged. “Not your best.”

“It’s five in the fucking morning.”

“Probably five thirty now,” said Bull cheerfully.

“And you’re _really_ selling me on yoga,” said Dorian scathingly. “It’s like meditation but _worse_. And you might cry doing it.”

“So do you want to?”

“You’re joking.”

“Nope.”

“What _possible_ incentive do I have to make a fool of myself in front of other people?”

“No other people. Just me.”

“What?”

“Come on, we’ll do it every evening before bed. It’ll help you sleep.”

“No.”

“Or when you wake up.”

“Definitely not.”

“It’ll be something we do to increase flexibility,” and Bull said this so calmly, so boldly, that the second serving girl who had been pouring the milk slopped it all down her front with a squeak and fled the room.

“Look what you’ve done,” sighed Dorian. “I needed that for my tea.”

“No self-respecting person drinks milk with tea,” said Bull with the aggrieved air of a well-loved argument.

“I know what you’re doing,” said Dorian, annoyed. “I didn’t agree.”

“You will.”

“And why’s that?”

“You asked for incentive.”

“Did I?”

“Well I have one.”

“Is it money?” Dorian asked hopefully.

“You greedy son of a Vint.”

“I know. I’m terrible that way. But I do need new socks.”

“It’s not money.”

“Sex?”

“Kind of.”

This made Dorian pause for a moment. “A new…kind of sex?” he hazarded.

“No. The opposite, actually,” said Bull cheerfully.

“What?”

“No sex at all.”

“ _What?”_

“Hey, I told you, yoga would build flexibility.”

“This is absurd.”

“I’m just trying to be a good friend.”

 _Friend_. Dorian glanced into his teacup. It was an amber brown, and far too bitter with the types of herbs he didn’t really like but were all that grew in the South. He _was_ Bull’s friend. But for him to say it like that – as if the sex was only –

Dorian smiled bitterly and drank his equally bitter cup in one swallow.

“We’ll try it,” he admitted begrudgingly. “It has to be better than meditation.”

* * *

The first day of yoga was extremely dull. Despite his size, the Iron Bull turned out to be quite good at holding long painful poses for some minutes, even if he wasn’t hyper flexible. He encouraged Dorian when he proved able to touch the floor or reach his arm to the ceiling, but the action spasmed something down his ribcage and he gasped, stumbling.

“Oh, do shut up,” he said to Bull’s smug eyebrows.

They did not sleep together, which Dorian pouted about. He had hoped Bull would relent, but realized sourly that Bull did not need to relent; that he could find anyone he wanted to bed.

Technically, because they did not have an understanding of that kind, Dorian supposed he could too. But it was already night, and he had already washed with a warm cloth, taken off his eye makeup, and the idea of getting ready again was exhausting and irritable, so he ended up getting into the cold sheets alone and grumbling when his leg began to twitch.

The second day was worse. Iron Bull insisted they go through a series of stretches to open up Dorian’s shoulders, which Bull commented as getting hunched in the library. The stretches burned, and Dorian became waspish when Bull asked if he was pulling on any old memories.

“This is ridiculous,” he fumed.

“Then you should laugh about it,” said Bull serenely. He was gently pulling Dorians arms wider from behind. Dorian’s collarbones were screaming.

Dorian almost turned around and slapped him, and by the way Bull’s fingers tightened on his wrists he had a sneaking suspicion Bull had felt the jerk.

“It isn’t funny,” Dorian said darkly.

Bull was silent a moment. Dorian was sure he was going to be an ass about everything, but then Bull said:

“I know.”

This was somehow worse. “Do shut up,” Dorian said again.

The third day Bull spent most of the time pushing down on Dorian’s back as he bent at the waist, stretching out his back and thighs. His face hung low to the floor. His eye burned with black dots and his face was hot and tingly. This, understandably, was frustrating and unpleasant, but when he yanked himself upright and took a few steps away from Bull, he was angry at the understanding, almost pitying look on Bull’s face.

“This isn’t working,” he said angrily.

Bull raised an eyebrow over his good eye.

“You’re so _smug_ ,” Dorian snapped. “Have you thought that maybe it’s hard to breathe bent over like that? That my back hurts and my shoulder hurts and I’m _tired_ of this stupid game and I’d like to go back to fucking?”

Bull shrugged. “Yeah,” he said succinctly.

Dorian blew out a long, frustrated breath, and tried again. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I’m being beastly. Forgive me.”

“I know you don’t mean it.”

“No. I just…”

“Just?”

“I’m just so tired.”

“Are you?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Too tired to go out with Lavellan?”

“What?”

“She invited us to hike the Hinterlands with her.”

“Thank Andraste. Last time I had Emprise du Lion. I almost froze to death.”

“Well you should have taken me with to warm you up.”

“Would you like to put your mouth where your mouth is?” asked Dorian sweetly.

Iron Bull looked confused for a minute and didn’t catch Dorian’s quick step in, his clever tongue.

Inexorably, Bull took him by the shoulders and held him at a distance.

Dorian opened his eyes. The twitch in his leg was getting worse.

“Why not?” he demanded.

“Because you’re using sex to get out of-“

“Yes? So? I’m an adult! I can use sex! I can-“

“Use me?”

“What? No. Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, of course you are. It’s all this terrible bending over and –“

 _Holding me down_ seemed rather an overt pass.

_I bet you like it when they hold you down. Bet you jerk when there are fingers near your throat stroking its long pretty length in the firelight. Bet you talk too, say the most obscene, filthy things when they get their tongue around you –_

_“You’re wrong,” Dorian had said. “I don’t. I just watch them.”_

_“No,” Iron Bull had smiled angelically. “You won’t, when you’ve got someone’s tongue that’s worth it around you_.”

That was the first night they had gone to bed together. That stupid drinking game.

And the Iron Bull was always good at guessing.

Bull smiled crookedly at Dorian, who tipped his head forward. Bull let him step the last step into his chest.

“I’m sorry,” Dorian said in a small, contrite voice.

“Don’t you look up your lashes at me.”

“I’m not!” protested Dorian.

“I’m not stupid enough to fall for innocent boy.”

“Twice,” smirked Dorian.

Bull chuckled a laugh and pulled Dorian in the rest of the way into his arms.

Dorian could feel his leg twitching and he grimaced against Bull.

“What hurts?”

“Nothing.”

“You don’t want to stretch. It hurts. What hurts?”

“Everything.”

“A bit of a drastic change from half a second before.”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re very communicative,” Bull said, smiling into Dorian’s hair.

Dorian didn’t smile back.

After a moment had passed, Dorian heard: “Hey. Do you want me to rub your back instead?”

Dorian stiffened in Bull’s arms. “No,” he said quickly, turning his face up to look at Bull. “I’m okay.”

“I think-“

“I’m fine.”

“We’re well past-“

“Bull!”

“Dorian, it’s normal to feel angry. You’re loosening up a lot of-“

“Don’t say _trauma_ ,” seethed Dorian, pulling away and backing up a few steps. “I’m not _traumatized._ ”

“I-“

“Don’t!”

“I’m not saying-“

“Yes you are! You’re making me to be this poor broken _thing_.”

“You’re not broken, Dorian – “

“Yes I am! Maker, it’s like you can’t even see-“

“So you’re broken but not traumati-“

“It’s sounds like garbage when you say that.”

“I’m just observing-“

“Stop observing. You don’t have to spy on _me!”_

There was a long, terrible pause, and Dorian realized the Iron Bull was pressing his lips together. He felt a strange sense of victory that he had scored a point.

Out of pettiness, he lit the fireplace and felt bad when Bull flinched. He knew Bull wasn’t comfortable with magic. Then a hot hatred swelled up in his breast. _Good._ He was glad Bull had flinched. Dorian had flinched from him plenty of times.

The bile on his tongue was bitter and he realized his jaw was clenched hard. He was trying to cut his tongue on the inside ridge of his teeth as he stared into the fire. He knew that if Bull tried to touch him then, he would say something he regretted. He would end things. He would tell Bull to get out. And Bull, ever the bigger man, would go.

“Dorian,” said Iron Bull slowly. His voice wasn’t where Dorian had been standing, and Dorian turned to look over his shoulder, wincing at the way his neck twinged at the sudden movement. They had been stretching it. It only hurt worse than ever.

Iron Bull was sitting in one of the two armchairs by the fireplace. It was summer turning autumn. They didn’t need a fire yet, but Dorian was fond of fire. Not the least of which because he had tied it to his emotions from boyhood.

“What?”

“How’s the twitch?”

Dorian took in a huge breath and let it out slowly. In that time, his leg didn’t twitch once. He glanced back at Bull, frowning.

“Did you do that?”

“No.”

“Did _I_ do that?”

“Maybe.”

“Don’t sound so confident,” said Dorian mockingly. “You might give me a big head.”

“A big head is useful,” said Bull.

They both smirked, and Dorian allowed Bull to reach out and tug on his hand to reel him back towards him.

“Would you like your own chair?” Bull asked, not pulling Dorian into his lap as he usually would.

Dorian sighed at the little things Bull did to show respect. To show care.

It felt churlish now, but he still agreed. “Yes.”

He disentangled himself and went to the empty armchair, settling deep into it so that he didn’t have to see Bull’s face.

“I understand this is hard for you,” Bull began quietly.

“Do be quiet.”

“Dorian, at least let me –“

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because…because why can’t you just be content to leave me as I am?”

“Because it’s obvious you’re hurting.”

“It’s not obvious to me,” said Dorian jeeringly, but they both heard the unlikely ring of truth in the words, and Dorian’s voice faded off towards the end.

“I know,” said Bull simply. “I want to take care of you.”

Dorian stiffened in his chair. “And you can’t just suck me off?”

“Hey, way to make this crass, even for me,” said Bull, but with an admiring tone like Dorian had won a prize.

“I’m just saying. Pushing me to be a better emotional person isn’t exactly something-“

“Lovers-“

Just as Dorian said: “Friends – “

They both stopped, and Dorian stared straight ahead, his heart hammering in his throat.

“You think I do this with all my friends?” Iron Bull’s voice was amused.

“I don’t know,” said Dorian, his voice brittle. “You are extremely nosy. And pushy.”

“Eh,” shrugged Bull. “That’s fair. I care about my people.”

“ _Your_ people.”

“Yeah. The people I’ve chosen for myself.”

Dorian felt himself shrinking down into the chair, trying to sound nonchalant, his voice steady. “And I’m just one of a bunch of flowers, is it?”

“Is that what you want?” Bull’s voice was even. As if he had no preference. As if it was up to Dorian alone how selfish he would be.

“If that’s what you want.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“It’s an unfair question.”

“Asking what you want?”

“Making me choose.”

“I’m not making you choose.”

“But you’ll choose based off what I say.”

“It is hard to be affectionate without encouragement.”

“Do shut up.”

“See?”

Dorian laughed, and his voice was too high as he said: “No, I don’t want that. But I don’t want you to feel like I’m tying you down. I know you have your choice of –“

“Dorian.”

“What?”

“My choice is you.”

Dorian covered his face with both hands and squirmed even lower in the armchair.

“You’re being very silly,” said Bull, and this time his voice was closer. Dorian peered between his fingers to see that Bull had slithered onto the ground by the fireplace and was kneeling in front of Dorian, one arm on the arm of the chair. His jaw was tight, and Dorian knew what it had cost him physically.

“Don’t,” said Dorian at once. “Your knee.”

“Yeah, it isn’t fun,” grumbled Bull. “Wanna help me up?”

“You’re so stubborn. You didn’t have to hurt yourself.”

Iron Bull grunted as Dorian guided him to the bed and helped him sit down, then Bull dropped his stiffness all at once as he beamed foolishly up at Dorian.

“What was all that?”

“Proving to you it’s not a chore to help people you care about. You’re the one who told me not to hurt myself.”

Dorian pursed his lips. “You know, I feel like I should be angry about something.”

“It’ll come to you, I’m sure. In the meantime –“ Bull patted the coverlet beside him, and with a longsuffering sigh, Dorian sank next to him, sliding into his weight and body heat with a sort of bonelessness he only ever got around Bull.

“You can be so pliant when you want to be,” Bull murmured into his temple as he leaned over.

Dorian shivered pleasurably at the hot breath on his scalp. “Yes, well,” he said lightly, tracing fingers over the crisscrossing scars on Bull’s chest. “You do rather take it out of me.”

“You want me to take it out of you now?”

“Rather put it in.”

“You’re a cad,” Bull grumbled.

“That’s me,” said Dorian lightly.

“Dorian.”

“What?”

“Do you always have to-“

“I know, I can’t help it. I’m so very dramatic.”

“You are, you know.”

“Oh, I do know. Just ask my father.”

Silence, and Dorian felt the joke had soured the mood between them. He cursed himself internally. Just when he had been patching things up. He reached for Bull’s hand on the bed, playing with his big fingers.

“Look,” and Dorian knew this signaled a new tactic by Bull’s tone and the way he threw his arm around Dorian’s shoulders the way he might have with Krem. “You don’t mind helping _me_.”

“This isn’t _helping_.”

“It’s improvement.”

“Exactly.”

“Exactly!”

Dorian frowned. “Wait,” he said slowly, linking his fingers through Bull’s.

“And if someone you loved was here,” Bull said carefully, then trailed off. They both heard it, and neither moved until Bull took a deep breath and said: “If your mother was here, would you make her take care of you?”

“What?” Dorian said numbly. It fell from his lips the way a spoon might. His hand went limp.

“You love your mother, right? It’s your dad we –“

Bull stopped abruptly, and Dorian yanked his gaze down and away with his hand. He had unexpectedly felt his eyes well with tears.

 _How mortifying_. As if his mother hadn’t been dead for more than ten years.

“Shit,” said Iron Bull after a moment.

“Yeah,” said Dorian with a stupid wet smile, rubbing at his eye with a finger that fooled neither of them, pretending to be digging something out of the corner. 

“Shit.” Bull said again.

“Shit,” he agreed.

Bull was silent for a long time. Dorian was counting his heartbeats and then Bull surprised him, the way he often surprised him, with the mental gymnastics he was capable of: the sensing of random patterns over days or weeks of behavior.

“Is this the disease?”

Dorian swallowed. His “Yes,” was very hushed.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.”

“Shit,” he said, but very softly.

“Dorian, I –“

“Yes, yes,” Dorian waved him off. “It’s perfectly alright-“

“It’s not all right. I didn’t even know your mother was –“

“But to answer your question,” Dorian said, too loudly, too brightly, flattening any attempt at sincerity or sympathy Bull might have been building towards, and skirting widely around the inevitable story. “No, of course I wouldn’t make my mother wait on me. I would want to take care of _her_ after such a long journey. I’d want to show her everything. Everyone I cared about. I’d want to show her Skyhold, my library, my friends, my – well, my –“

“Even though you’d be tired from doing it.”

“It wouldn’t _matter_ ,” Dorian was frustrated Bull was being so obtuse. “I love her – loved her – Love her?” Dorian half-laughed at himself for getting the tense wrong more than once. “I love her, of course. And if she were here it wouldn’t be a chore to take care of her.”

“Because it’s not a chore to take care of people you care about.”

A beat of silence.

“Ah. You’re clever. I see what you did there.”

Iron Bull’s voice was low and coaxing, the way he might approach a skittish horse: “Please.”

Dorian dropped his face into his hands.

“What are you afraid of?” Bull asked quietly. “That I’ll lay my hands on you and find you a stranger?”

Dorian had not lifted his head. Instead he mumbled into his palms: “I’m afraid you’ll be disgusted.”

Bull was silent a long moment, and Dorian could _feel_ the room darken with Bull’s glower even if he couldn’t see it. He had the sinking, sweet, stomach-swooping suspicion that Bull was not angry with _him_ , but rather with whatever fictional enemies he was conjuring to protect Dorian from.

“Why?” he finally said at last, evenly, without emotion.

Dorian groaned into his fingers and looked over their tops, his nails biting into his eyebrows. “Because I’m not a good person.”

“And you have to be a good person for someone to give you a massage?”

“No. Someone can. Not you.”

“Why not?”

“Because you can see things all tangled up together.”

“And?”

“And because you’ll see the truth writ large, so to speak.” Dorian felt suddenly foolish, mumbling the words into his knuckles, and instead he stared straight at Bull, feeling daring and angry and suddenly very lost.

“The truth?”

“That I’m weak,” laughed Dorian. “And that I’m selfish and unkind. That I’m-“

“Human?”

“Spoken like a true non-human.”

Iron Bull quirked a grin, gesturing at himself with one broad hand. “Hey, I’m no saint.”

Dorian rolled his eyes, feeling comforted by the easy banter: “Sometimes you rather sound like one.”

“I’ll mention that to Cassandra,” said Bull devilishly. “The next time she takes a big gulp of wine.”

Dorian half-smirked into the silence. He looked at Bull and bit his lip. He wished Bull would stop being so… _good_. That he would just kiss him instead. And that they could forget any of this ever happened. That Bull wouldn’t lay his hands on Dorian and knead his muscles and feel the shelves stuffed full of the things Dorian didn’t want to ever see.

Bull had a crooked grin pulled up one side of his face as if on a string. “Don’t you…don’t you want someone to help you?”

Dorian suddenly felt his face flame up, and he dropped his head back in his hands, covering his mouth as his shoulders began to shake.

He felt Bull’s hands on him immediately, one pressing him down for grounding, the other rubbing his back to soothe. “Are you crying?”

Dorian lifted his face. He was crying, but he was also laughing. “Andraste, you make me sound _just_ like her. She used to shout that: ‘I just need some Maker-sent help around here!”

“And did you?”

“What?”

“Help?”

“No of course not. I was a selfish princeling. I didn’t lift a finger. I only laughed and ran away.”

Bull’s voice was unsurprised. Even. His hand was warm in its comforting circles. “Were you a child?”

Dorian bristled under the question. Under the forgiveness implicit that he didn’t deserve. His shoulders were stiff, not relaxing into his touch. “Some of the time.”

“How old were you when she got sick?”

Dorian looked away from Bull, turning his head over his shoulder to stare into the firelight. It was an awkward position, and it hurt the sore muscles in his neck from yoga, but it also made sure Bull couldn’t inadvertently catch his gaze and hold it. Bull’s hands stilled.

“How old?” Bull asked into the thick, suffocating silence after a minute.

Dorian found his voice somewhere in the soup of his throat. “Fourteen.”

“That’s a child. You can’t hold yourself to the same standards you would have now.”

“It didn’t feel like being a child. When I think about it, I wasn’t a child.”

“You mean after she got sick.”

Dorian nodded. He wished Bull would stop talking. The things on the shelves were teetering, and he didn’t have enough mental energy to hold more than one shut at a time.

Bull thought for a moment, holding the conversation until Dorian unwillingly unwound himself, shaking off Bull’s hands. He glanced up at Bull’s face to check how angry it made him before peeling at his own hangnail. Bull, predictably, had flashed no hurt when Dorian pulled away. Only resignation. Then Bull asked quietly: “What did it feel like?”

“It felt like,” Dorian began automatically, but then realized he’d never been asked this question. Not _how did you feel_ but _what_ did _it_ feel like. He took a deep breath, and then said the first string of words that made sense.

“It felt like one very, very, very long scream where your throat gets hoarse and you run out of air and your jaw aches and you can’t even think of stopping.”

Iron Bull looked at him, and his blue ringed eye was incredibly soft and understanding. Dorian couldn’t stand it and pulled at the skin on his thumb until it bled.

“And you carry that with you. Etched into you.”

“Yes,” Dorian told the droplet of blood. He wondered if it was too cliché to use blood magic now that he had a droplet to practice with.

Bull wasn’t stopping. “And you’re afraid if I – that I’ll be - “

“Yes.”

To Dorian’s surprise, Iron Bull stood up off the bed and spun around to face Dorian. Dorian had been so taken aback by the sudden absence of solid warmth he had glanced up involuntarily.

“You think…” and to his surprise, the Iron Bull’s blue eye had gone flat and cold. His shoulders were knotted, his hands clenched. When he spoke, his voice shook. “You think so little of me that I’d be disgusted by _that?”_

“Well, I am,” Dorian admitted, flicking his gaze back to his thumb, showing no reaction to Bull’s temper.

Bull was still angry. He was pacing. “Because you were a child? Because it hurt?”

Dorian set his mouth and _yanked_. More skin came up. “Because it was worse than anything I’ve ever done to any dead thing ever,” he said flatly.

Iron Bull stopped pacing. He stared down at Dorian for a long moment. “And did you get into dead things while she was dying?”

Dorian laughed hollowly. “Well spotted. Yes. I was a precocious little sociopath. My father thought it was good I had a hobby.”

“Dorian,” and Bull’s voice was so quiet it broke on the ends. This time Bull did kneel, and not for the effect. Dorian was forced to stare down into his face as Bull covered his bloody fingers with his own.

“What?” Dorian was waspish, defensive.

“Were you…trying to save her?”

“No!” but Dorian could hear his own sharp voice, hoarse on the edges. It was a painful word to bark, and reminiscent of the years-long scream. He wasn’t sure what the truth was, the word or the sound of it.

There was silence between them as Dorian tried to mouth the beginning of a sentence he wasn’t even sure he understood.

“You just,” began Bull.

“I just wanted to,” continued Dorian, grateful for the lead in.

“To feel?” hazarded Bull.

“In control of something,” said Dorian gratefully. Then he wrenched his gaze away from Bull’s shining one. Bull’s face had something in it. Softness, certainly. Pity, definitely. But…pride?

“Don’t look at me like that,” Dorian snapped.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re _sorry._ ” Dorian stood up, striding past the kneeling Bull towards the fire, which roared up at his approach. Behind him, he could hear Bull as he struggled against his sticking knee brace to stand.

 _“_ I am,” said Bull quietly.

“ _Like it’s forgivable!”_ Dorian hadn’t realized he was about to shout, but since it ripped out of him, it was all he wanted to do.

Iron Bull was standing, and Dorian was facing him, chest heaving, his hands sweating and a vile taste on his tongue. Quietly, Bull held out a hand.

“Come here.”

“ _You can’t be nice to me!”_

“Dorian, come here.” Bull caught hold of Dorian’s wrist, and though he thrashed, he didn’t manage to struggle free before the words spilled out of him:

“ _I’m a monster!”_ Dorian could feel his voice break, the way it hadn’t since the scream got inside of him, somehow.

Bull reeled Dorian forward step by staggering step. He held his shoulders in warm, large hands. “You’re not a monster,” he said quietly, and with so much dripping compassion Dorian was afraid he might spit in Bull’s face. “You were just a scared kid.”

“ _FUCK YOU_ ,” Dorian snarled, pushing forward as if he might shove Bull off balance. Bull held him easily in his hands. Dorian struggled against him, cursing, and Bull dug his fingers into the soft hollow at the front of Dorian’s shoulders eliciting a gasp of pain.

“Yeah, I know,” said Bull as Dorian resumed cursing. “You can tell me. You can say the things you need to say.”

Dorian suddenly went limp in Iron Bull’s grip, so completely and unexpectedly that Bull staggered to hold him upright. Without warning, Dorian began to cry.

“No,” he tried to croak out, tried to explain to Bull. “I can’t…I can’t say…I _can’t_.”

“Why not?”

“Because they’re horrible,” said Dorian, half-laughing and half-sobbing. “And for what it’s worth, I’m not a scared child anymore, and the things I’ve thought to say in the intervening years aren’t for other people to hear.”

“So?”

“ _So?”_

“So why can’t you say them anyway?”

Dorian didn’t know how to explain to Bull the endless hours he had spent thinking up elaborate scenarios deconstructing everyone’s weaknesses, their secret fears, their flaws. He knew how to punch Bull. To call him the Qun’s leashed pet. Bull would laugh, and Dorian would comment that the Chargers only followed him for the gold. Bull wouldn’t laugh. And then Dorian would have the real fun, poking at why Bull wanted to help people so much. What kind of tally he was carrying. What had happened before Bull was Bull. When he was called Ashkaari. When he was called Hissad. The nearly ten years on the island of Seheron. Dorian didn’t know exactly what Bull had done there, but there was enough monster in him to guess.

Bull had turned himself in for reprogramming, and they had refused him. Dorian knew why: that brokenness was easy to manipulate. That edge of madness an easy knife to twist deep into the mind of a man who had lost his grip on sanity for a while, or thought he had.

Finally, Dorian looked up, feeling sick at himself for the thoughts Bull was asking him – daring him – to say aloud. “Because I couldn’t do that to a living person,” he said wearily.

Bull ducked his head to catch Dorian’s gaze. He didn’t fight it. What was the point?

“Even yourself?”

Dorian felt his face wrinkle up in a disgusted grimace. He stood himself up, trying to shrug off Bull’s hands. Bull looked so relieved at a normal expression on Dorian’s face, he let one hand be flung free. “Sometimes,” said Dorian rather curtly. “You could just…be quiet you know.”

“Yeah,” Iron Bull crooked a half smile. “I know.”

Dorian sighed, stepping closer to Bull and leaning his own shoulder into Bull’s, so that they were standing side by side, instead of confronting one another. Bull’s hand was warm around him.

“Oh Maker. You’re going to make me do this, aren’t you?”

Iron Bull chuckled. “Yeah.”

Dorian glared at him from under his eyebrows. He sometimes forgot how _tall_ the Iron Bull was. “Haven’t you done enough?”

Bull smiled the other half of his crooked smile. “Just the ugly parts. You got your fear out. Let me at least fix the twitch.”

Dorian stared at him, waiting, and then twisted to check, his hands running over his thighs, over his back. None of his nerves were pinched, and both his leg and back had stopped twitching.

“Look,” he said sardonically, spreading his hands. “I’m cured.”

Iron Bull rolled his good eye. “Look, if you don’t let me take down the threshold it’ll just happen again.”

“What does that mean?”

“I gotta clear some room for you to give yourself more backaches.”

“You’re witty,” said Dorian dryly. “I like that in a man.”

Bull harrumphed, but Dorian could always tell when he pleased Bull by catching him off guard.

Dorian cocked a hip and made another face. ”Can’t we just have sex?” he asked hopefully.

The expression on Bull’s face darkened deliciously. “Oh don’t worry,” he said pleasantly. “I’ll get there.”

Dorian tried to laugh, but Iron Bull grabbed the soft tender undersides of his jaw and rubbed along the stubble coming in. Dorian felt goosebumps shoot down his neck and arms.

“Open your mouth,” said Bull.

Dorian flushed up under the thumbs, but eagerly opened his mouth.

Bull moved his hands to the joints of Dorian’s jaw, near his earlobes, then to the soft spot just behind it. Without warning, he pressed down.

Dorian yelped, snapping his jaw shut. “Ouch!” he griped, rubbing his own face. “That’s not what I thought you wanted.”

Bull was nodding to himself. “You clench your teeth at night.”

“Of course I don’t,” said Dorian airily. “Sometimes my mouth is stretched around your-“

“Clever boy,” said Bull in a bored tone that still didn’t quite cover his interest. He enjoyed when Dorian was the brat. It was one of their favorite scenes to play. “You know when you press down behind your jaw, it’s not supposed to hurt.”

“You pressed _very_ hard!”

“No, just lightly.”

“Liar.”

“You can do it to me.”

“No, you’ll just fake it.”

“Do it to yourself,” Bull shrugged. “But I think we both know you’ll lose this battle on whether you clench your jaw.”

Dorian clenched his jaw, then glared at Bull when he smiled broadly in victory.

He stalked away from the firelight to stare out the only small window he had. He could feel the shape of Bull behind him, taking up too much room as usual. It was night properly now, and there was no moon. Save the fireplace, the room was black with shadows, and Dorian wished he had kept his mouth shut when Bull pushed him towards the floor.

Better for him to have hurt silently than reveal himself for what he was.

“Hey,” Bull’s voice was quiet. “It’s going to be okay. I’m going to take care of you.”

Dorian turned a bleak smile to him, his arms still clasped behind his back. “Do you know,” he said with a horrible false casualness to his voice. “I was talking with Cole. He said sometimes when people are upset, it’s like seeing the color of the walls when you walk into a room.”

Bull was silent for a moment, working it out in his head. He grunted in surprise. “And what did you say?” he asked after a moment.

“I told him it was polite to close his eyes,” said Dorian, his voice soft and hard edged, as he turned his gaze back to the fire.

Bull was silent, and then he crossed to the front of an armchair and settled himself in it, not glancing at the standing Dorian, watching the fire. After a moment, he spoke.

“Would it make you happy for me to close my eyes?”

“Yes.”

“Truly happy?”

“I don’t know what true happiness is,” said Dorian mockingly, but the bitterness flavoring it made it come out sad and brittle.

Bull nodded to himself. “I could,” he said slowly. “I could leave. We could stop.”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

“But?”

“But I probably wouldn’t sleep with you anymore.”

“Oh?” and Dorian forced himself to sound casual, as if this wasn’t some unfair ultimatum.

“It’s not what you think,” said Bull, one of his hands caressing the end of an arm on the chair. “It’s just…I want to be close to you.”

“You are.”

“Let me rephrase then,” said Bull, and to Dorian’s surprise, his voice was impatient and angry, two things Bull rarely was. “I want to be closer to you than anyone. And if you aren’t going to let me, then there’s not much point pretending.”

“Ah,” said Dorian lightly, still staring into the flickering flames. “I see.”

“It goes against my nature not to notice,” said Bull after a minute.

“I know.”

“I know you know. That’s what’s so shit about you asking this.”

“I don’t know why you would care,” said Dorian lightly. “You’ll get too deep into it and realize you’ve made a horrible mistake.”

“I wish I could make that choice myself,” said Bull bitterly.

Dorian realized at that moment they were actually _fighting._ They had never fought before. Not really, with disagreement in words.

“Do you know what this feels like?” Dorian said, his tongue being cruel while his mind screamed for him to stop.

“What?”

“Reprogramming.”

He waited, ready for Bull to be angry. Ready to begin the fight for real. The way he might have with his father, with dramatic phrases and loud voices. He glanced at Bull, and was surprised to find him smiling slightly.

“What?” Dorian couldn’t help but ask.

“And you wanted to be the dumb one,” chuckled Bull.

“It isn’t,” Dorian was horrified.

Bull shook his head, still not looking at him. His horns cast great shadows against the wall. “No. Not really. Just the good parts.”

Dorian swallowed. “The good parts?”

“Being taken apart gently.”

“And put back together?”

“Not the way the Qun does it.”

Dorian felt a horrible swooping in his stomach, and without thinking, because he wanted to offer comfort, he crossed the short distance to place his hand on Bull’s shoulder. Just as blindly, Bull reached up and covered his hand with his own, squeezing.

“I always thought,” Dorian said awkwardly.

“You were right,” Bull said lightly. “There’s a lot of that too.”

“Of what?”

“Of drugs and starvation and torture.”

“Andraste’s mercy,” was all Dorian could think to say.

“Not quite,” said Bull darkly.

Dorian laid his other hand on Bull’s shoulder, felt the way it was so tightly strung it was shivering slightly beneath the grey skin. Without thinking, he began to rub circles with his thumbs, pressing down when Bull dropped his great horned head forward in both invitation and defeat.

“I’m not trying to break you,” he said to his lap, and Dorian’s hands stilled.

Dorian swallowed. “I know,” he said finally, and resumed.

“These are just the things…” Bull breathed out through the pain of something Dorian was unlacing in the hollow of a shoulder blade. “These are just…the things I do.”

“You?”

“They wouldn’t, you know.”

“Wouldn’t what?” But Dorian did know. He shouldn’t play coy, but this was the most open Bull had ever been about the subject.

“Reprogram me. After Seheron.”

“Why did you want it?”

Bull blew out a frustrated breath. “I see your side, I do. Because you haven’t been on the other end of it. And like I said, the methods are all source, jumbled together. There are bad days. Bad weeks. Lots of sleep deprivation and thirst and begging for relief. But there are the good ones too.”

“The sex?” Dorian couldn’t help himself. The Qun was rumored wildly in Tevinter, and he cursed himself for sounding so ignorant.

“That too,” Bull shrugged. “There’s a lot of different ways to motivate people, and they usually use them all in reprogramming. But that’s not it. It’s just…the feeling of being _fixed_.”

Dorian’s hands tensed on Bull’s broad back. His voice was quiet, but furious. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

“Sure there is,” Bull shrugged expansively. “I think too much.”

“They made you Hissad.”

“Because I think too much. They wanted to make me a soldier, but I wasn’t a good fit.”

“And they couldn’t…reprogram that?” Dorian regretted the snide remark as he said it, and quickly used his thumbs at the base of Bull’s neck in apology.

Bull dropped his head even further forward, the cording of his muscles creating stark shadows across his back. He huffed a laugh.

“The thing about coming out of the Qun is this complete assurance of having _purpose._ ”

“In life?”

“In everything. You feel like you were made for a reason. That you weren’t just born for nothing. That you're totally prepared for any situation given to you because you were trained exactly for it. The thing Qunari fear more than anything is disorder. Not knowing what’s going to happen.”

“The human condition,” said Dorian dryly, remembering his conversation with Cole again, and feeling a strange prickling uncanniness that Cole might have had it for this very reason.

“Well, I hate it,” said Bull flatly. “After they turned me loose after Seheron, the instructions became more and more vague. Find a mercenary company. Sure, okay. I know how to fight. But how to _be_. How to talk to people.”

“But you’re very good at talking to people.”

“Because I learn quick. Not because I’m good at it.”

“You are good at it.”

“Because I forced myself to be. In the beginning I didn’t know social situations. When jokes were right. With what crowds. What was off-color. I made a lot of people mad. Got in a lot of fights. I asked for clearer instructions. I got nothing. I started worrying that they weren’t taking me back because I was like _this._ ”

Dorian stopped moving his hands and squeezed the outside of Bull’s shoulders. “Like what?” he asked quietly, aware of the gift the Iron Bull was giving him. The trust.

He hated himself then, for being so selfish. And for Bull always, always, always giving.

“Like,” Bull swallowed loudly in to the silence. Even the fire was banked, though Dorian hadn’t done it on purpose. “Like I was broken. That I wasn’t Qunari anymore.”

“But you are,” Dorian said, but it sounded flat and hollow to them both.

Bull turned an anguished eye towards Dorian. “I don’t know,” he confessed in hardly more than a whisper. “Sometimes I feel like…I don’t know what I am anymore. If I went back now, I would never see Krem again.”

“And you love Krem.”

“I’m not supposed to love anyone.”

Dorian dropped a kiss on the top of Bull’s bowed head. “I know,” he said sighing gustily. “Neither am I.”

Bull mock-glared up at him. “You’re making this about you.”

“I can only do what I do best.”

“You are very good at it.”

“As are you,” said Dorian after a moment. “It’s hard sometimes, when you’re so observant.”

“It’s funny,” Bull said after a quiet moment, tipping his head back to look at Dorian behind him. “That you were raised to cover and I to uncover.”

“Seems we’re the most mismatched pair then,” said Dorian lightly.

“Will you come here?” asked Bull, and Dorian moved quickly around to stand between his legs. But it was he who took Bull’s face between his two hands and cradled it gently, a precious, beautiful thing.

“I don’t want you to be reprogrammed,” he said quietly. “I want you here. With me. And the Chargers. And Lavellan.”

“That’s what I want too,” said Bull in a low voice, his eye locked with Dorian.

“Well then,” said Dorian, dropping a kiss to surprised lips. “I don’t know why you have to go and make _everything_ so difficult.”

Bull huffed a surprised laugh, pulling Dorian into his lap and kissing him senseless. “You brat,” he said fondly. “You’re very good at distracting me.”

“Papering over the situation.”

“Shelving it.”

“You know, I do think of it that way.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. The shelves. When I don’t want something, I just-“

“Shove it,” suggested Bull innocently.

Dorian scowled at him. “You know, you could make things sound less dirty if you aren’t going to follow through.”

“Who says I’m not?”

“All this ‘Dorian I want to make you better’ and-“

“I do want to make you better.”

“’Dorian you’re _hurting_ -‘”

“Dorian.”

“Don’t start with me.”

Without warning, the banked fire collapsed into ash. Dorian glanced up in surprise. There wasn’t enough wood to keep it burning even now. But their eyes adjusted to the low filtered starlight, and Dorian glanced back at Bull.

“Can I ask about her?” Bull said into the sudden hush.

“Who?” Dorian pretended to be fiddling with Iron Bull’s shoulder piece in the darkness, hiding his face as if Bull could even see his expressions.

Bull only waited.

“You can ask,” Dorian said reluctantly.

“What was she like?” Bull asked immediately, and Dorian felt a huge swelling in his throat of affection and gratitude that Bull had asked the question that no one ever asked. He had braced for _how did she die, how long ago, how old were you, how old was she, what was it like to watch her die?_

Those were ones he received often.

“She was wonderful,” said Dorian softly into the darkness. Then, because this was inadequate and a paltry remembrance, he took a moment.

“She liked music. We had a bard, and when I was young, she would dance with me in the gardens at twilight, when the sun had set. She loved silver, and wore only silver jewelry, except her wedding ring, which was gold. She didn’t like people as much as my father. She was reserved. A lot of my friends were afraid of her.”

“But not you.”

“Sometimes. She could have a temper.”

“But?”

“But…” and Dorian’s throat closed. “But we were special,” he finished huskily.

“You and her.”

“Yes.”

“You were her person.”

“Yes.”

“And she was yours.”

“Yes,” and Dorian’s voice broke.

The Iron Bull made another incredible mental leap. “She was the one you would bring things to, before.”

Dorian was silent, unsure of how to respond.

“Before you shelved things, she was the person who you could talk to. To make things better.”

Dorian nodded in the darkness, and Bull surprised him by standing up suddenly, his joints cracking before he felt two large arms envelop him. Bull’s body blocked all light from the window, and Dorian closed his eyes in the darkness, letting his own arms thread around him. It was strange, seeking comfort. He had never sought it since.

“Poor kid,” sighed Bull.

“We’re close to the same age,” Dorian’s voice was clipped with annoyance in the darkness, and it broke some of the pallor, and they laughed together nervously.

“I meant,” said Bull, his smile as evident in the dark as it was when Dorian wasn’t looking, “that you never figured out how to deal with the hard stuff without her.”

“Everything hard had to do with her,” Dorian snapped bitterly. It had slipped out without his meaning.

“Because she got sick,” Bull guessed.

Dorian nodded finally. “And then my father felt that we had to keep up appearances. That I needed to stop messing around and take my responsibilities for the family name seriously.”

“And the company you kept.”

“Yes.”

“And you loved her.”

Dorian didn’t even bother to answer, only pulled out of Bull’s arms and crossed to the bed, where he sank onto it wearily, scrubbing a hand over his face. It was still dark both before and behind his eyelids, but the darkness was comforting, easing the things he had to say.

“Watching her die didn’t just _break_ me. My heart was broken when I fell in love and I wasn’t allowed to have a relationship. And I dealt with that by not having relationships. My heart was broken when I left my home. My heart was broken when my father came to the Gull and Lantern, and Lavellan was there to hear what he said.” Dorian’s voice was bitter, choking him. His tongue was tripping against his teeth, and he could only breathe through his mouth.

“But her. But with her…” Dorian paused to wipe his eyes just as he felt the heavy weight of Bull sit next to him, and Dorian slid into him with the same weightlessness he always experienced.

“But with her, the world shifted,” said Bull simply.

“With her out of it, I wanted to be,” said Dorian flatly. Then, tentatively, “Much like you and the Qun.”

Bull blew out a long breath, and Dorian could hear the sound of his palms running over his thighs consideringly. "Maybe at first," and Bull's voice was guilty. Quiet. “It was one of the reasons I wrote and asked for reassignment. I wasn’t sure if I would be able to keep doing it, or if I might just swallow a crossbow bolt.”

“Maker.”

“Yeah.”

“But now?”

“It’s not like that now,” Bull said simply. “I’ve got things I need to be around for. Like if Krem is going to get laid this decade.”

Dorian laughed.

“Kid's got no game. It’s sad.”

“I’m sure you attempting to teach him is a lot of not understanding why women and men alike don’t seem to throw themselves at his feet.”

“I can’t help if I’m built like this.”

“I’ve changed my mind, I’d like to be there when you declare your sainthood before Cassandra.”

“I think I might have a shot.”

“ _No_.”

“Aw, come on. I think I could get Leiliana. She’s religious.”

“Maybe she’ll kneel for you.”

“Nice,” chuckled Bull appreciatively. “But Leiliana kneels for no one.”

 _“Don’t_ ,” warned Dorian. “All your little guesses –“

“I’m right.”

“Well your _guesses_ – “

“Facts.”

“- keep intruding when I’m trying to talk to people! Do you even understand how embarrassing it is to try to talk to Lavellan?”

“No, I think she’s really opening up Cullen’s worldview. I mean, she’s opening him up for sure.”

“I will hurt you.”

“Nah.”

“You want to try me?”

“Yeah, kind of. If you’d let me.”

“Oh, clever,” said Dorian witheringly. “We’ve come full circle. To the unstringing old things.”

“I told you the yoga would work.”

“This is the worst date I’ve ever been on.”

“Really?” Bull scratched a cheek, fingernail against stubble loud in the darkness. “This isn’t even in my worst five.”

“Did those worst five end in you still sleeping with your conquest?”

“Well yeah, but-“

“Shut up then.”

They sat for a moment in the darkness, in companionable silence. Then Dorian reached blindly for Bull’s hand, seeing the glimmer of his outline, the shape of him in the starlight. He carefully ran his fingers from Bull’s shoulder down to his wrist.

“What if,” he said quietly. “What if you take me apart and you can’t fix me.”

“Dorian.”

“I’m practically held together by lyrium and caffeine, you know.”

This time Bull chuckled softly in the darkness, and it raised all the hair on Dorian’s arms.

“Yeah,” he said after a moment. “I know.”

“And then? When poor Lavellan needs a fire mage or a lightning bolt and all she’s got is someone who’s only half sane?”

“I won’t let that happen,” said Bull seriously, and Dorian could have kicked himself for saying the thing that was printed on Bull’s grave in the Fade.

“And how do you know?” Dorian tried to be light, teasing. “You might undo one knot and the whole ball of yarn comes apart in your hands.”

“I would like that,” admitted Bull.

Dorian laughed, poking Bull in the darkness, and then laughing more when Bull caught his breath in surprise.

“I mean,” Bull corrected, his voice still lanced through with warmth. “I highly doubt that would happen. I think this might take a long time. And if I ever feel like I’m pulling on threads keeping you walking-“

Dorian swallowed loudly in the darkness and Bull fell silent.

“Sorry,” he grunted after a minute.

“It was a messy way to go,” Dorian answered when he could.

“What I’m trying,” said Bull in an almost whisper in the darkness. Dorian jumped when he felt Bull’s lips at his hairline. “Is to help a friend.”

“Ah, back to friend,” Dorian said, half-mockingly.

Bull did not draw back in the darkness, but a hand came up to thrill along Dorian’s spine, his uncovered back. “You’re kind of stupid,” Bull said into his ear.

“I’ve had it on good authority-“ began Dorian, and then felt all his words slam together in his throat when Bull sucked in the lobe of his ear and bit down.

“Bull,” and his voice shook embarrassingly. “You said-“

“Yeah,” Bull said, pulling back so that his eye glinted in the starlight. “But if you want, I’ll take you right to the edge.”

“Yes please,” Dorian heard himself agree. Perhaps being taken apart wouldn’t be so –

The warm hand between his loose trousers startled him, and he tipped backwards. Bull, damn him, had expected it, and Dorian felt a big warm hand at the small of his back gently laying him down, then scooting him up the bed.

Then Iron Bull was crawling up the bed in the darkness, his hands pulling off Dorian’s pants in one fluid motion. Dorian sucked in a startled breath, but the only air he could draw was the hot heavy suction of Bull’s mouth on his own. He gasped when Bull moved to his neck, sucked in tender skin, Dorian gulped the suddenly chilled night air.

Without warning, Bull flipped him to his stomach, and Dorian tried to climb up on his elbows. Bull hummed agreement, snaking a big arm beneath one of Dorian’s, holding him up as he began sucking kisses down the back of Dorian’s neck, his other hand pinching down on the painfully tight nerves in Dorian’s shoulder. He gasped, bucking against Bull’s weight, hardly able to move for being pinned down. Bull moved his hand down, his thumb inexorable, digging into Dorian’s tight muscles with punishing efficiency.

“Bull,” Dorian croaked, dropping his head forwards to escape the hot, open mouthed kisses Bull was smattering across his swollen lips.

Bull pulled his arm from beneath him, and Dorian fell forward. He could feel Bull’s huge hands dragging down his back, feeling like he was pulling handfuls of sand towards Dorian’s hips. Dorian couldn’t help the pressure, and he felt them pop up against Bull’s heavy cock.

Bull chuckled in the darkness.

“It-“ Dorian began, but Bull twisted his thumbs into Dorian’s lower back and he gasped in real, white flashing pain before Bull had flipped him to one side, his leg shuttering Dorian’s knee up and open.

“Oil?” grunted Bull.

Dorian, grateful, threw both his arms above his head in the general vicinity of his vanity. Several bottles exploded under the touch of the poorly cast spells, but one whipped back to the covers. Dorian reached for it, but Bull batted his hands away.

“No,” he said huskily, and Dorian knew by the way his voice was quiet, shy, that this wasn’t a request Bull made because it was what Dorian needed. This was something Bull was asking for himself. “Leave them above your head. I like the way you suck your breath in.”

Dorian felt himself squirm against Bull at the raw intimacy of the request, but then sucked in a breath without performance when Bull poured oil over his big hands and fisted Dorian’s cock with half a dozen strokes.

Dorian tried to snap his knee shut for tighter stimulation, but Bull’s leg was in the way, holding his hips open at a v as Dorian tried to twist his hips back flat and Bull kept a grip over one thigh.

“Patience,” Bull chided.

“I have no patience,” Dorian’s voice was honey in the darkness. “I thought we’ve long established this.”

“And yet I’m going to make you patient.”

“You’re going to break me.”

Bull’s hands stilled. “I would never,” he said softly. His thumbs were circling the place where Dorian’s thigh met his hip, and suddenly under Bull’s hands he could feel the tiny beaded knots of tension, like grains of rice lined under his skin. Bull pressed down with a thumbnail, and Dorian’s lower back arched embarrassingly upwards against Bull’s firm hand.

Bull chuckled. “But I might bring you very, very close.”

Dorian had his eyes squeezed shut in the darkness against the sensation of Bull’s circling thumb pressing the tension in the crease of his thigh. “What did you do?” He was proud his voice didn’t tremble.

“I don’t think you realize how much tension you’ve put into your hips.”

“I don’t think _you_ realize-“ began Dorian weakly, but Bull only lowered his head to lap at the tip of Dorian’s curving cock, resting heavy and swollen against his stomach.

Dorian mewled. “This isn’t fair,” he complained. “I can’t touch you at all.”

“Oh, but this is how I’ve _wanted_ to touch you,” Bull said darkly, and Dorian shivered and bucked against the sensation as Bull rubbed another knot and it sprang suddenly loose, a cork from a bottleneck.

“Then Maker what have we been _doing_ all these months?” Dorian complained, desperately seeking more stimulation, and receiving only a hand gripping into the meat of his ass so firmly he writhed backwards into the contact.

“Waiting,” Bull said in that same promising, dark voice.

“I certainly haven’t,” Dorian complained.

Bull took him in his mouth again, and Dorian’s breath stuttered. He tried to rock his hips, but Bull was holding him completely still, his thumbs pressing indents into his thighs as he bucked against the sensation.

Dorian reminded himself this wouldn’t have the ending he wanted, but he was so drunk on Bull’s tongue, his bruising fingers, the feeling of coming unspooled beneath careful hands was so addictive he couldn’t help but jerk and writhe and whimper.

Bull pulled away slowly, Dorian dripping out of his mouth an inch at a time. Bull was running the side of his thumb up and down the inside socket of Dorian’s thigh and he was jerking both backwards and forwards; away from the pain, into the sensation.

“Bull,” his voice was thready. “I-“

There was the sudden absence of hands, Iron Bull pulling back completely, letting go so that Dorian’s weak knee flopped shut and his ragged breathing was loud in the darkness.

“Oh this isn’t fair,” he mumbled, pulling one hand coyly to his chest and the other, like a flash, downwards.

There was a deep chuckle in the darkness that made Dorian’s skin prickle even as he felt the warm hand like a manacle holding his own against the sheets.

“You can’t do this _all_ night,” he taunted, frustrated.

“Watch me,” said Bull in a way that made Dorian actually cough as his air blocked his windpipe, and Bull laughed.

“Just a little more,” Dorian wheedled. “A few more kisses.”

“Nice try.”

“I’ll let you bite me,” Dorian offered blandly, and he saw the laughter trembling shape above him still completely, a dark silhouette in the starlight. “Anywhere you like,” he added quickly.

There was no answer, only movement, and without warning Dorian felt his knee flipped open again, felt a big head nudging his cock out of the way as he thrilled at the sensation, and the warm wet tongue of the Iron Bull in the crease where his thigh met his abdomen. And then there was only blinding _pain_ as Bull sucked in the tender skin and bit.

Dorian felt his shoulders leave the bed as his stomach cramped up, but instantly he felt the quick apologetic darts of a wet, soft tongue in the same bruised place and he felt a hot smear of new precum sluice out of him onto his stomach and the sensation was so much, so intimate, so very _close_ that-

“Dorian,” his name sounded sharp against his ears, raw.

“What?” he snapped peevishly.

“You’ve got to let me wipe you down.”

“Yes, of course I-“

“You’ve _got_ to let me go.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Open your eyes.”

Dorian didn’t realize his eyes were closed in the darkness, and when he opened them he saw, with spine tingling mortification that he had frozen – quite literally – Iron Bull in place from the knees down.

“Oh,” he said, rather shamefacedly. “At least…at least it wasn’t fire this time.”

“You’re learning,” Bull said a touch sarcastically. “It shows I’ve got _something_ to work with.”

Dorian laughed into the darkness and after a long moment of Bull pretending he wasn’t amused managed to wriggle himself into a sitting position. He laid both his hands on the block of ice encasing Bull’s legs and tapped into the warmest slow burning memories he had to feed the magic: _The Western Approach, when Sera got so sunburnt that Vivienne had to layer her in ice; the way Cullen turned pink around his nose when he was spectacularly drunk during a long evening in front of the fireplace; the hiss between his teeth as he sank into a steaming bath his first night in Skyhold after the longest trek through the snow, washing the blood of those he had carried a while from under his arms._

Without warning, the ice sloughed off of Bull and all over the bed, a huge wave of cold water drenching Dorian’s bare legs.

“Nice,” Bull observed.

“I was trying not to burn you,” Dorian griped, pulling his legs out of reach before rolling out of the bed over one hip to find his discarded trousers. He ignored the painful erection in favor of cleaning up. With a wave, the torches lit, and he saw Bull blink to adjust to the new light levels.

Dorian busied himself with finding wood in the metal basket by the fire. He wasn’t exactly the sort to lay his own fireplace, so after fumbling around a few moments, he heard Bull sigh irritably and then lever himself down next to Dorian.

“How’s the knee?” Dorian asked guiltily.

“You know,” said Bull after a moment as he built the logs in a good burning bracket. “It feels better for the ice.”

“You’re being kind,” Dorian sighed, turning his attention to light one of the logs with the lowest flame that would catch so he didn’t burn off Bull’s fingers.

Bull bumped his shoulder hard enough that Dorian almost toppled over, but was saved by a quick snaking hand around his forearm.

“Yeah,” Bull beamed. “I am. You’ll have to get used to it.”

“I feel,” Dorian said huffily. “That you haven’t been that kind to me tonight, leaving me in this state.”

“You’re the one who wet the bed.”

Dorian gasped. “That’s extremely unfair!”

“Is it?”

“You’re the one who –“

“Who?”

“Who!”

“Who?”

“Oh, do shut up,” Dorian huffed, and Bull laughed. They helped each other stand up both shifting their weight, Dorian complaining loudly, and Bull silently.

“Now what am I to do?” Dorian said mournfully, looking at the sheets.

“You could sleep on the couch,” Bull offered.

“The nightmare couch?” Dorian said, scandalized.

“The what?” Bull’s smile turned up at the corners, even as Dorian blushed.

“Oh, it’s…it’s just where I sleep after I’ve had a nightmare.”

Bull stopped smiling, or somehow his smile tinged with something else, and Dorian turned his face sharply away, smoothing the ends of his mustache to hide his blush.

“You don’t need to make a thing of it,” he told Bull. “I’ll sleep on the couch tonight.”

“Yeah, well,” sighed Bull regretfully, hooking thumbs into his belt as if they both didn’t know very well he was skirting the issue tactfully. Dorian was seething, and Bull was smiling. “I wanted to stay here tonight, maybe work on you some more –“

“Get out!”

“I have to say, I’m not being treated-“

“Out!” and Dorian was flapping arms at Bull, shepherding him towards the door. Bull was laughing.

“Out!” Dorian snapped again, and then yanked open the door so that Bull could leave.

Bull turned once, and unexpectedly brushed Dorian’s face with a large thumb.

Dorian took in a huge, deep breath.

“Thank you,” Bull said simply, unaffectedly. “I know what this cost you.”

Dorian did not know how to answer, only ducked his head into Bull’s chest and closed his eyes, seeking a very different sort of intimacy than before, and one he was not accustomed to.

Bull made a surprised huff, but before his arms could encircle Dorian, he had shoved him out the door.

“You’re a dirty tease,” Dorian proclaimed loudly, then sucked in a surprised breath how loudly that had come out in the dark corridor. He snickered behind one hand. 

The Iron Bull grinned a slow, broad smile.

“Yeah, yeah,” he waved, turning to go. “So they tell me.”

* * *

Dorian was stiff when he woke the next morning and he groaned into the predawn grey. It was entirely too early, but he had promised Vivienne breakfast. He hated her now, but knew if he traded his getting ready time for more sleep a graceful eyebrow would raise up and Dorian would feel like a slovenly beast. Perhaps people would mutter. He shuddered at the thought and rolled off the couch. He missed his feet and took a knee. It was a long, stiff process to stand all the way up, and he cursed Iron Bull loudly and ineffectually as he hobbled his way over to his empty teapot. He filled it with water from his fingertips then heated it with a bolt of lightning to the side instead of waiting for a slow boil. He fed the magic startlement:

 _The first taste of Bull's tongue, fumbling in the darkness above the Herald's Rest. The laughter startled out of him at Lavellan's completely filthy joke out of the blue during a particularly depressing slog through the Fallow Mire. The shock of seeing Alexius after all these years, and all this distance._ He could feel the structure of the teapot buckle, and he cursed himself. Too much. He had left a scorchmark. On the benefit, the water was scalding even through the clay.

He poured into his waiting cup and added two black teabags, extra strength for the morning. Then he settled in one of the wingback armchairs before the fire - the one Bull had taken, incidentally - and tried to block out the memories from the night before. Bull's quiet confessions. His bowed back beneath Dorian's fingers.

He shifted in his seat, and felt the tender skin on the inside of one thigh twinge. He knew without looking he would be covered in round bruises the exact size and shape of Bull's thumbs. The idea of that was dizzying, and Dorian tried to wipe it literally from his mind with a hot damp cloth over his face.

He used the small side table to hold is far too hot tea, and rolled out his cosmetics he kept on his vanity. He swiped under his eyes, working the creams in with his littlest finger before carefully lining his eyes with a kohl stick that left black powder like charcoal dust on his fingertips. He wiped them on his sleeping pants; there were so many identical marks on them it was hard to tell where the new ones were. He finished tinting his eyelashes then stood up and climbed into cold leather, grumbling as he did so.

Vivienne had spread breakfast on her balcony, and for a heart-stopping moment, Dorian was afraid she had also invited Lavellan's Keeper as a guest. But then he saw that the slim figure was Lavellan herself, her black hair tucked self conciously behind one pointed ear, both hands wrapped around a teacup. She looked up when Dorian approached.

"Dorian," and she seemed genuinely pleased to see him. Dorian had to carefully wipe the immediate feeling of holding Chancellor Rodrick under one arm, feeling the warm seeping blood on his side. That had been the first time he and Lavellan had made eye contact, and he was disturbed by the flash of reminder.

"Lavellan," he said, stooping to kiss vaguely at her cheek. He squeezed her shoulder. "What brings you to Lady de Fer this morning?"

Lavellan sighed and she and Vivienne exchanged glances.

"Dorian, do sit down," Vivienne instructed, and Dorian flushed thinking about how easily Vivienne commanded those around her.

He sat, taking a hot pastry from an enchanted basket with a hot towel. He poured himself his second cup of tea and doubled the black teabags again. He caught Vivenne's dark slant eyed glance from the corner of her eye, but she did not comment in front of the Inquisitor, for which he was grateful.

"It's Cullen," Lavellan said simply.

"He's not ill?" Dorian asked in mild alarm.

Vivienne did not roll her eyes. But Dorian felt she had regardless. "No, my dear, of course not."

"Then?"

"Then, he's…he's…" Lavellan struggled for words.

"What the Inquisitor means is that Cullen has made quite the boob of himself."

Both Dorian and Lavellan erupted into giggles, and even Vivienne managed a cat in cream smile as she rearranged the scones.

"He's such a good man," Lavellan protested. "It's astonishing that he can make _such_ an ass of himself when it really counts."

"Ah," said Dorian, shredding his breakfast between his fingers. "The Keeper?"

"He called her _Lavellan_ ," Lavellan said, embarrassment heating her cheeks. "As if she wasn't the Keeper. As if she was just a clan member."

"He does try," Vivienne said, not-quite-consolingly.

"He tries _too_ hard," Lavellan said crossly. "He's turning into a toy soldier. He hardly speaks to me or spends time with me for fear of meeting the Keeper. He only drills nonstop and she keeps asking me if I'm sure."

"Sure?" Dorian raised an eyebrow, and Lavellan's face went beet red.

"Oh my dear," said Vivienne, this time with a surprised but pleased tone.

"Please don't tell anyone," Lavellan said. "Least of all Cullen. He's being so insufferable right now, and we have such a long battle ahead of us, and I do want my clan's traditions to be part of it - he - "

"I see," said Vivienne. "You want him to understand."

"Yes!"

"But you won't tell him."

This time Lavellan was silent.

"My dear, that's hardly fair."

"I know," groaned Lavellan.

"You can't just swing a sword at all your problems," Vivienne reminded her gently.

Lavellan's gaze darted over to the greatsword lying casually on the flagstones. She had just had it crafted by Dagna, and was so fond of it Dorian half wondered if she slept with it.

"Can't I?" she asked wistfully. "That's how Cullen seems to do it."

"Cullen has gotten himself into some very sticky situations," Vivienne said, with slightly more coolness to her tone. "If Varric is to be believed."

"He is," said Lavellan glumly.

"Well, why don't you go down to the cellar and pick something out?" Dorian asked.

Lavellan looked at him.

"Or does your Keeper not drink?" he said, suddenly fearing.

"No, no, she does," said Lavellan, her voice thoughtful.

"Alcohol, Dorian, is your solution?" Vivienne asked.

"To many problems," Dorian said cheerfully. "And Cullen's more bearable when he's drunk."

"That's true," said Lavellan thoughtfully.

Vivienne distinctly did not roll her eyes again, but the way she blinked made Dorian hide his smile in his mug of tea.

"I only mean," said Dorian, correcting himself hastily, "that he's less stiff."

 _In every sense of the word_ , and this was Bull's cheerful voice in his head finishing the joke as Dorian snorted delicately into the dregs of his first cup. He covered his own amusement by pouring more hot water into his mug. He noticed the spells Vivienne had laid on it were gently warming spells, far off echoes of baking sand in the sun. He thought of his own teapot this morning and flushed, hoping the pink sunrise would cover it.

"I have to go," sighed Lavellan, sounding very unwilling to drag herself up. "But thank you both," she said genuinely. "I do want her to like him. Maybe tonight we'll play chess and I'll invent a reason to have a hand cramp."

Bull did not need to finish the joke in Dorian's head this time, and he laughed out loud, covering his embarrassment when both Vivienne and Lavellan stared at him baldly by sipping too-hot water that hadn't even steeped. He cursed his burnt tongue and put his cup down hard.

Lavellan picked up her greatsword from the floor, swung it over her shoulder, and winked noticeably at Dorian when Vivienne was busy spelling the used plates to a waiting tray. Dorian settled back into his own chair until Vivienne looked at him.

"My dear, you'll rumple your hair that way."

With what he hoped was an inaudible sigh, Dorian straightened back up, biting the inside of one cheek to keep a straight face when his back pulled against the stiffness of the couch, his thighs twinging from the bruises. But at least the twitch was gone.

Vivienne was not looking at him, carefully using tongs to rearrange the pastries in their basket. But Dorian knew, even without looking, that Vivienne was watching him.

"What?" he said, and it came out more fond than snappish, which he considered a victory.

"And what have you and the Iron Bull been up to?"

"What?" and Dorian could feel his ears heat. "Nothing."

"You're a terrible liar, my dear."

"I'm a very good liar."

"Then you must not want to lie to me."

"I must not."

A beat.

Dorian scrunched up his nose at her in frustration, and this time she smiled, a real, tight-lipped smile back.

"I'm fine," he said instead.

"A very bad lie."

"I'm not _bad_ ," Dorian assured her quickly. No deep darkness he was prone to. Nothing like what he had confessed to Bull last night.

Vivienne only regarded him. "Is this about the meditation incident Solas was griping about?"

Dorian frowned. He was going to have to talk to Solas. He wasn't nearly as removed from all the Skyhold gossip and drama as he pretended.

"It wasn't an _incident_ ," Dorian assured her. "It was merely early."

"Yes, I don't care for the morning meditation."

"I'll bet," Dorian muttered under his breath, recalling the very real jealousy he had felt while Vivienne had been asleep.

"Yes, I meditate before bed."

"What?"

"Are your ears clear?" Vivienne affected concern rather than deign to repeat herself.

Dorian seethed. " _You_ meditate?" and it came out far more insultingly than he intended.

Vivienne raised the dreaded eyebrow. "More tea?" she asked calmly, and Dorian knew he should say no, knew that four cups of tea was far too many, even if Vivienne would only see three.

"Please," Dorian said in clipped tones. He knew he was affecting the same aggravating persona he used when he was in the same room as his father, but he was so sour with Vivienne he couldn't shed the rudeness.

She offered him a selection of teas, and this time Dorian chose mint, something fresh and while not caffienated would still wake him up. He ignored Vivienne's polite second eyebrow when he only selected the one teabag and poured himself more hot water. His hands did not tremble. He felt proud.

Vivienne settled back in her chair with her own untouched cup of tea. She rarely ate or drank in front of others, even while hosting these parties. Dorian knew it was because she never wanted to seem undignified if she had just taken a bite of something, so her bites were small, precise. As were her words.

Dorian refused to look at her for a minute, but then unwillingly flicked his dark eyes up to hers, feeling bitter and childish.

"Yes," Vivienne said, as if the resulting pause in the conversation had never happened. "I do meditate. All mages should."

Dorian bristled up at the comment, but did not rise to the bait.

"Do you know how magic works?" And the abrupt shift in conversation unwillingly drew Dorian's gaze again, even as he took mimicking tiny, precise sips from his teacup. The mint tea wasn't strong enough, and he regretted only taking one teabag.

"What do you mean?" Dorian asked warily.

"Magic is drawn and fed by memories," said Vivienne, patiently instructing the way she did when she and Dorian were teaching a group of young apostates, drunk on freedom after their tower seclusion. He and Vivienne disagreed on what to do with them, but they never broached the topic, only taught together or in turns.

"Yes, of course," Dorian said testily.

"Can you feel the spell on the teapot?"

"Yes, I felt it as soon as I poured my first cup."

"And?"

"Other people's memories are hazy."

"Yes, and?"

"It's sand."

"Sand?"

"Warm sand," said Dorian, feeling himself unwillingly being dragged into a conversation about academic magical theory, which Vivienne knew he liked. He was glad, suddenly, she did not know his father. He might have never left Tevinter if she had. He felt himself squirm and sour. Then, unexpectedly, Bull's reminder:

_"You know she's a mistress."_

_"A mistress?" Dorian had asked, "or a Mistress."_

_"Yeah," and Bull's smile had been slow and warm._

_"To whom?"_

_"The mistress?"_

_"Yes."_

_"To a duke and his lady."_

_"To both?"_

_"It'd be weird to just be one."_

_"Oh, many men-"_

_"No, I know Viv."_

_"She hates when you call her that."_

_Bull had beamed: "I know."_

Now Dorian glanced at Vivienne the same way she had not glanced at him earlier. She looked very well put together, but Dorian knew the traces cosmetics left behind; the tiny cakes in the corner of her eyes. She was disguising deep shadows, the way he was. Corypheus might kill them all without ever touching them.

He warmed his voice marginally: "The desert?"

Vivienne's eyes flicked up at the slight shift in tone, and Dorian felt like an ass. Vivienne did not crack for many people, but he wasn't the only one with something weighing him down.

"Very good," she said, but her voice didn't have the usual crispness.

"And why are you telling me this?" Dorian couldn't keep the humor from threading his voice, or from the exhaustion seeping into it.

Vivienne silently refilled his cup, a truce gesture. Between old politicians like themselves, the slight intonation of words, the capitulation of gesture, was enough to show trust.

"Because my dear," said Vivienne, and Dorian was pleased to hear the thread of impatience mixed with fondness. "If magic is fed on memories, meditation is there to clear out the lingering effects from mages' minds."

Dorian felt his jaw drop. "Is it?"

"Yes."

"And is this something _every_ mage knows?"

"It is taught in the circles."

Dorian danced away from the topic. "And…and _everyone_ knows this?" he knew he sounded stupid, but he couldn't stop from poking at the statement, examining it from every side.

"Every magic user, I would say," Vivienne let her façade crumble a bit before him and deigned to nibble an almond horn.

"Well now I'm a little put out that I haven't learned to meditate," said Dorian unthinkingly, then winced even as Vivienne smiled half-triumphantly, like she had already been assured of her victory.

"I thought as much."

"Was Solas insufferable about it?"

"Quite."

"You enjoyed that, didn't you?"

"Very much."

"You're a sadist."

"Only on Tuesdays," Vivienne said calmly, taking another careful bite so that Dorian's clenched fist onto the arm of his chair could not be commented upon. He wanted Iron Bull there to shake in congratulation, or perhaps throttle in frustration that he was _always_ right.

Dorian only shook his head, setting his cup down and refusing with the flat of his hand the tea Vivienne offered.

"My dear," and Vivienne hesitated. Vivienne rarely hesitated, not in combat and certainly not in conversation, navigating every situation with a calm and unflappable ease that set Dorian's teeth on edge.

"Yes?"

"Please don't take this the wrong way."

"I probably will."

Vivienne smiled a half smile again.

"My dear, it's honestly a miracle you haven't lost your mind."

Dorian was glad he set down his teacup, because he didn't think he would have held onto it. "Excuse me?"

"Meditation is for clearing the mind and memories we have to conjure. You're a fan of fire, are you not?"

"Yes," Dorian said warily.

"And so you have to burn things, or think of things that burn you, often."

"Maybe."

"Quite so. And yet… I am not sure how you are still…."

"Normal?"

"Now really, don't take it to such extremities."

Dorian laughed, but the sound was hollow. The sun was glittering on the horizon, shedding its redness for a bright yellow white spot that glittered off the snowcapped mountains.

Vivienne laid a cold fingered hand on his sleeve, and Dorian covered it with his own, sending a pulse of warmth into her fingers the way he had with Leiliana. Vivienne crinkled her eyes at him, more of a smile than her smile could ever be, and Dorian felt the warmth of pity and friendship stewing together under the surface. Surprisingly moved, he looked away.

"Yes, well," he managed eloquently. "No one ever told me that was what meditation was for. They only said it was important."

"And so every test you had?"

"Yes. I became quite adept at faking it."

"I applaud your efforts."

"And yet."

"Well, yes, but hope is not lost."

Dorian lifted his eyes. "It's not?"

"No. You'll just have to learn it from the beginning."

Dorian groaned, and Vivienne withdrew her hand, looking self-satisfied again. He had followed the conversational breadcrumbs straight into her trap.

"You're joking," he said.

"I never joke."

"We both know that's not true."

"Whatever you say, my dear."

Dorian ground his teeth and Vivienne took a sip of tea.

"Fine," he managed somewhat civilly. "And I suppose you're the teacher."

"Solas offered."

Dorian swore so loudly that a few people on the ground below just emerging looked up.

Vivienne was not laughing, per say, but she did point out mildly: "My dear, he's not that bad. He's quite civilized, actually."

"Actually," repeated Dorian scathingly. "Because he's an elvish apostate."

"Apostate being the operative."

"And yet-"

"You shouldn't be so hard on him."

Dorian shuddered to think of being soft towards peculiar, otherworldly Solas. "Consider me yours."

"I'm afraid my heart is otherwise engaged."

Dorian almost smiled, but glanced sidelong at her. "And?"

Vivienne stared at the sunrise without blinking, but Dorian could see her eyes were suddenly wider than she normally held them. Bright.

"And it's breaking."

Dorian put his hand on Vivienne's arm, and she set down her teacup to hide her tremor. She covered his hand with her own.

"And this," she said briskly after a moment of recovery, "is why meditation is important."

Dorian groaned over theatrically to break some of the early morning mood.

"Yes, yes," Vivienne said mildly. "Would you like to begin here? Or would you like to come to my quarters nightly?"

"People will talk."

Vivienne gave him a cool once over. "Hardly," she said.

Dorian laughed again, but this time with the feeling of a lump in his throat, concern for his friend pulling on the corners of his mouth and eyes.

"Here," he said after a moment. He didn't want to have to explain the nightly routine Bull had already demanded.

Vivienne began with a quick walk through on meditation that Dorian mostly ignored. If she noticed his unfocused attention, she didn't say anything. Dorian had mastered attentive fake listening to an art form.

"Dorian dear," said Vivienne, snapping him back into focus. "I highly doubt I can get you to stop thinking even for a moment."

"I resent that."

"With most men I would say their heads are full of air. Maybe they are transcendent focusing on only breathing and-"

"Scratching," Dorian offered helpfully.

"Quite," said Vivienne in a clipped tone that made Dorian sit up a little straighter in contrition.

"But with you," she continued, and sighed in a way that made Dorian feel rather ashamed of himself, unlike any of the times his father had sighed in his direction. "I think we'll need to just make you aware of your breath."

"Previous teachers have told me to think of an ocean," Dorian offered helpfully. "In and out."

"Hmm," said Vivienne, which was as close as she would come to critiquing something without an audience for her wit.

"Well?" demanded Dorian testily.

"With your mouth closed, push your tongue against the front of your top teeth in the soft part of the roof of your mouth. Breathe in. Hold for a comfortable amount of seconds, and breathe out through your mouth."

"Oh, _magic_ breathing?" Dorian said testily.

"Do hush, and settle yourself on the floor."

"And you?"

Vivienne looked down at him a moment after Dorian had settled before unexpectedly dropping to a graceful side, leaving her legs out as she settled her weight on a hip. "Does this help?"

"Immensely," said Dorian, with faux satisfaction dripping from his tone to hide his nervousness. He didn't exactly like _failing_ at things. And especially not in front of Madame de Fer.

"And instead of thinking of your breath, or the ocean," said Vivienne thoughtfully. "I want you to pick a word."

"A word?"

"A word that makes you feel calm."

"A calm word?"

"Not a spell, of course, or we might end up in all manner of precarious situations. If you do tend, like children do, to use magic during your first attempts at meditation, I may have to call a Templar in."

She smiled angelically at him. "I'm sure Cassandra would enjoy it."

"Cassandra is not a Templar," fumed Dorian, but Vivienne, damn her, was enjoying herself too much. Cullen was too easy of a target.

"She can dispel magic or lay a smite," Vivienne said seriously, and Dorian turned away before his acid tongue got the better of him.

"A word," he said finally. "Any word?"

"Any non-magical word. And no, you don't have to tell me."

Dorian felt his mind hop skip from word to word: his mother's name _, no too painful,_ Bull's name, _no too distracting,_ Tevinter, _too complicated._ He was irrationally worried about taking too long to pick a word and he could feel Vivienne's dark eyes on him and he blurted the safeword Bull had taught him without thinking and willed harder than he ever had in his life for his cheeks not to flame.

"Katoh."

"Kat-oh?"

"It's Qunlat."

"I see." Vivienne's expression did not change, but Dorian lost the battle not to blush. He wanted to shrivel up with mortification, but Vivienne merely asked:

"And what does it mean?"

"All end."

"All?"

"Roughly."

"And you want this to be your calming word?" Her voice was skeptical, as well it might be. Dorian had never had to use katoh - yet, as Bull always corrected him - but he did like the safety of knowing he could.

"Yes." He was sticking hard to his side now, for no other reason than thinking up another word for Vivienne to critique was too mortifying.

"You didn't have to tell me," Vivienne reminded him gently.

Dorian flapped a hand, as if he wasn't burning deep in his stomach with embarrassment. "Well," he managed.

She smiled a small, tight lipped smile, not at him, but at herself, as if in confirmation.

"Very well, "she said. "We'll start with five minutes."

"Five minutes?" Dorian's mood lifted considerably.

"This is a beginner lesson," Vivienne reminded him, taking some of the wind from his sails.

"Right."

"In through the nose-"

"Yes, yes."

"Very well," said Vivienne, her dark eyes glittering. "Impress me."

Dorian thought of how Vivienne had probably said that, in other contexts, dressed similarly, before he reathed hard through his nose, stifling nervous laughter before it bubbled out of his mouth.

* * *

Dorian did not impress her. Not the first day, nor the fifth, nor two weeks after. Though they slowly increased the time by one minute a day, there was never a session where Dorian was without any thoughts at all. But he did get better at slamming katoh in front of other thoughts like it was printed on a blank piece of paper. He became intimately familiar with the shape of the K, the sound of the syllables.

He found himself shuttering it in front of his wandering mind as he tried to sleep, or when he was stretching in yoga, until the Iron Bull gently took his hands and spread his arms wide, stretching his pectorals.

"You know," Bull said in a friendly tone. "You don't need to try to meditate during yoga."

"But you said-"

"That yoga was like moving meditation. And it is. But shutting yourself down every time you feel something sort of defeats the purpose."

"Oh, but I very much like doing it," said Dorian wistfully, and was grateful to receive a chuckle from Bull.

"I know."

They stretched in silence for a minute.

"Where do you hurt today?"

Dorian pretended to roll his eyes. "I don't know what you mean," he said coyly.

"Ha," snorted Bull. "I'm not saying it's a different place every day, but yoga brings out different ones."

"No twitches though."

"Not for lack of me trying."

"Low," Dorian really did roll his eyes. "You're cleverer than that."

"Eh, sometimes I feel like I have to bat at the low ones, just to show I can."

"Hmm."

"Yeah I was trying to set that up for something."

"And yet no delivery," said Dorian loftily.

"Not yet," and Bull grinned whitely at him, with entirely too many teeth, and Dorian felt his stomach swoop.

It wasn't that he hadn't jerked himself off, because he had. But like anything, the sex was much better when it was with someone instead of just his right hand. But Bull had constantly worked Dorian to the edge almost every night, only absent on campaign with the Chargers or tromping about with Lavellan. She was much happier with the departure of her Keeper, and so was Cullen. He and Dorian had gotten spectacularly smashed over a game of Wicked Grace led by Josephine - a terror - and Varric - a cheat. Lavellan had put in an appearance, as had almost everyone save Vivienne - too classy by half - and Solas - too weird by far.

Cullen had ended the evening streaking from the room in the buff, and Bull, who had been pretending to be passed out on the floor, had turned a sly and clever eye towards Dorian and Dorian had blushed with laughter at the way they had both observed Cullen's ass. It had a few bruised fingerprints on it.

Damn Bull for always being right.

Lavellan, for her part, had finished her drink coolly, cashed in her chips, and left wearing Cullen's fur mantle. Very few people had attempted to call her back.

Dorian had not let Cullen live the incident down for the past three days, and was unlikely to stop in the next year and a half.

Conceding to it, Dorian took a deep breath in, feeling out where his body was sore. This was a check Bull had taught him, and one Dorian despised on principle. But he did it nonetheless because Bull's alternative method of figuring out where he hurt was to whack him repeatedly and judge his winces.

"My neck aches."

"And?"

Dorian glared at him from under an eyebrow. "And the back of my hips."

"Your ass?"

"Above it."

"Right."

"But feel free to rub that too."

Iron Bull laughed, and Dorian felt marginally less like a zoo animal.

“Do you know why?” Bull asked patiently.

“Because I spend all my time bent over a book,” said Dorian peevishly, but hummed appreciatively when Bull let go of his arms to run broad hands down to his lower back and press down. Dorian sucked in a winced breath.

“And because you clench your back when you walk uphill.”

“Me specifically?”

“You in general,” said Bull, smiling slightly.

Dorian had a glimpse of Bull growing old; he would need spectacles and grow grizzled and white and his huge arms would be careful. Dorian swallowed at the thought of it, and Bull’s gaze drifted gratifyingly down his Adam’s apple, watching it dip.

“Want me to work on it?” Bull asked casually. As if this wasn’t the routine every night, digging thumbs into Dorian, leaving his bruises like fingerprints into his lover’s skin as Dorian came so very close. Bull had learned to smell the scent of magic: sharp like the first frost. He would back off then, though he grumbled Dorian could be taken a few more inches, a few more minutes to the edge.

Dorian, drunk on lust, would often beg Bull back, and Bull would laugh, throaty and dark, promising soon, someday soon, he’d bring him to completion so fully Dorian would understand.

Dorian sighed. Bull had not indicated tonight would be different. But damn it, he wanted to give in. Wanted to say yes, and have Bull carefully knee into his back until it cracked, dig his fingers into the slick slide of muscles, knead the knots out a tiny pin at a time.

But he drew away from Bull’s fingers. “I’m tired,” he said, and it wasn’t even a lie. He was tired. Of the game. And people treating him like he was stupid. Like he hadn’t survived all he had – done all he had for the Inquisition – and it was just sheer dumb luck that a baby like him was stumbling around.

Bull studied him, and Dorian knew it was childish, knew it would say more than words, but he turned away, crossing the room for one of his cosmetics cloths and carefully began wiping off the makeup.

“Dorian,” and the way the Iron Bull said his name made goosebumps stand up along Dorian’s spine.

He ignored it, and continued getting ready for bed. He didn’t make a production of removing his clothes, only pulled off his leather armored shirt, and the undershirt beneath to keep it from chafing against his skin. The chamois leather was soft, but could still wear down on body hair. Because it wouldn’t matter if Bull wasn’t touching him, he pulled on a clean undershirt for the next day, and stepped out of his shoes and trousers.

He felt his thoughts racing and concentrated on _katoh_ , his breath, the purposeful movement of his limbs. Since Bull had begun his massages, he hadn’t realized how often his body had ached for no reason. He had assumed it was getting old. And he was, but…

“Hey,” Bull didn’t like being ignored, and Dorian knew that. He wanted to do it, but the childishness of the gesture settled unpleasantly in his stomach. If he began treating Bull’s inquiries the way he would his father’s, then their relationship was doomed. Instead, Dorian turned, glancing at Bull with a blank expression that made Bull’s eyebrows go up.

“Yes?”

“Dorian-“

Dorian did not respond, and Bull seemed at a loss for how to continue.

“I’m sorry, I’m very tired,” Dorian said again, and then got into his own bed, not even waiting for Bull to leave.

Bull looked torn between climbing in and leaving, but he turned to go.

“I’m going out with Lavellan,” he said over his shoulder. “In the morning. The Hinterlands again. Thinks she found some cave by constellations or something.”

Dorian nodded. “Have a good time,” and they were both horrified, in their own ways, to hear he wasn’t even being sarcastic.

“It’ll be…a few weeks,” Bull said awkwardly. “At least two.”

“Alright.”

“And you’ll be okay?”

“Oh, I have my work to occupy me.”

Bull looked so uncertain in that moment that Dorian almost got up again, but stayed his hands around the topsheet, staring at Bull. _Katoh_ he told himself. No thoughts could interrupt him.

“I’ll bring you a present,” Bull said at last.

“Something pretty,” Dorian managed, and Bull looked so relieved at a halfway normal response, he smiled hugely, and carefully closed the door behind him with a click.

Dorian sighed, and shut his eyes.

He did not meditate before sleeping, and so he dreamed loud and long, and walked the Fade looking for someone just out of reach.

* * *

Vivienne regarded Dorian curiously when he dusted his hands on his pants after standing up. The balcony was getting cool so early in the morning.

“That was very well done, my dear.”

“Thank you.”

“Dorian?”

“Yes?”

“May I make an observation.”

“I assume you already have.”

“Aloud to you,” Vivienne clarified, just to make her point.

“If you’d like.”

“You know what I say about you, of course.”

“That is?”

“That you’re very sure of yourself.”

“Yes.”

“And yet-“

Dorian waited. He didn’t feel like rising to the conversational bait.

“Yes,” Vivienne agreed with herself. “That’s it.”

“What?”

“You’re very good at meditation now.”

“Thank you.”

“I don’t for one moment think it’s because I’m an excellent teacher.”

“Now,” Dorian dredged up a smile from somewhere. “You should-“

“You’re not yourself, my dear.”

Dorian stared at her.

“Or at the very least, you’ve let the play acting slip.”

Dorian continued to stare.

“And of course everything can be a little of both, can’t it?” asked Vivienne conversationally. As if they were discussing whether Lavellan’s Keeper ever warmed to Cullen. “You can be yourself, or you can be faking it, and some days it’s both at once.”

“Speaking from experience?” Dorian said, but flatly.

“Yes,” Vivienne said simply. “I am.”

Dorian knew he should feel guilt, should feel something but reflexively he slammed katoh in front of it and let it end. Let it fizzle out as he performed a smile for Vivienne. By her resulting graceful eyebrow, it was unsuccessful.

She looked at him the way a healer might look at a patient. “You’re trained enough to continue meditation on your own,” she said at last.

The word dropped leaden into Dorian’s stomach. “Am I?” he said vaguely.

“You’re doing an admirable job. We’re up to half an hour every morning.”

“That’s good,” said Dorian, with the same disinterest.

“My dear,” asked Vivienne with an unusual breath of hesitation. “Do you think the Iron Bull will return soon?”

“Pardon?”

“I can’t help but to notice that your…enthusiasm for life…has somewhat diminished when he’s not around.”

Dorian stared at her, opened his mouth to say that it was actually the night before, that he and Bull hadn’t fought, that he had felt so very tired of being a child – but then he slammed the ink black word on blank paper in front of it. He only nodded.

“He said more than two weeks.”

“And it’s been three?”

Dorian nodded, even as Vivienne’s tightly held eyes softened for him.

“I’m sure he is fine.”

Dorian nodded dutifully again, then stood, unsure how to leave.

“Perhaps breakfast once a week?” suggested Vivienne lightly, giving him a polite way to slip out.

Dorian half smiled at her. “That would be nice, though perhaps not on Tuesdays.”

He had thought for a moment at her blank stare that she had forgotten, that he had made a bad and crass joke, but then she smiled, a full smile with her teeth, and he had gone through the entryway door back into the library feeling successful at tricking at least one person.

He groaned internally. Both Helisma and Cole were waiting for him at the research table.

“Hello,” he said, ignoring Cole. Cole didn’t mind being ignored. “What are we working on this morning?”

“It is good to see you,” said Helisma. She always said this, though she could not care whether or not she saw him at all. It was a social nicety fed to her, and Dorian had to brace himself daily to hear it.

“Good morning,” he said, belatedly.

“Good morning,” chimed Helisma.

“It is not a good morning,” said Cole, and Dorian shot him a glance. Cole’s face was creased and Dorian reminded him:

“Fingers out, Cole.”

“Yes.”

“Ignore the walls.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Yes.” Cole’s face cleared. “Good morning,” he parroted at last.

Dorian sighed and then sat down. “What are we working on?” he asked again.

“We think these are the five finalists for the magisters that attempted an assault on the golden city. Corypheus would be one of them. We will need to cross-reference every text and try to rule them out.”

“How?”

“I do not know,” said Helisma, tranquilly.

Dorian tried not to glare as he pulled the text forward and began to read.

They worked for three more days, and when the fourth week since he had seen Iron Bull began, Dorian found himself with a back that ached so much that he preferred to stand in front of the long table, straining his eyes rather than his neck and shoulders.

“Hello,” said Cole, popping in so near Dorian that Dorian startled violently, dropping a very old, very beautiful gilded manuscript. Cole’s deft hands caught it before it hit the floor.

“I’m sorry,” he said contritely, feeling Dorian’s anger and frustration. “I said hello.”

“Most people use doors,” Dorian sighed.

“Yes but this is too important.”

“What is it?”

“They are back!” And Cole’s white face was whiter with excitement, his floppy hat bobbing in place.

“Who-“ began Dorian, but he didn’t need Cole’s half-finished explanation before the boy – spirit, he reminded himself – popped out. He had left the manuscript on the table. Dorian crossed with quick strides to the door leading to Vivienne’s terrace. She was already on the balcony, craning her neck to see.

“It would be easier if we went around to the front gate, you know,” Dorian said teasingly, joining her at the railing.

“Dorian!” And her voice was so warm, so pleased to see him, Dorian was aware how badly he had been behaving. He kissed her cheek as she threaded her arm through his. She suffered through it, as she had on the few previous occasions Dorian had attempted it. But now he saw her longsuffering bearing of it was her pleased expression.

“I told you, my dear,” said Vivienne consolingly. “They are fine.”

“Shall we go down?”

“Of course.”

Together they made their way down the stone steps to the courtyard. Vivienne’s dazzling white gown seemed out of place with something so mundane as grass stains.

As Dorian got closer, his heart skipped at the sight of Iron Bull’s back to them, his head bend down to talk to Krem. When Bull turned, Dorian felt his mouth go dry.

“My dear,” said Vivienne urgently. “Dorian.”

The Iron Bull was bandaged from his chest to his groin in thick white bandages, and even over this distance Dorian could see the stains beneath them.

“Dorian, you’re burning the grass.”

Dorian glanced down, and could see he was leaving a widening black circle of burnt grass from the lightning crawling across his suddenly numb and bloodless feet.

“I’m sure the Iron Bull is perfectly-“

Vivienne fell silent as Bull was induced to sit on the back of a cart, wincing.

“Dor-“ began Vivienne, but Dorian had fade-stepped away from her, his eyes locked on the form of Bull.

Lavellan was standing at his knee, and she was smiling. Smiling. Joking.

She turned, and Dorian felt the world was in slow motion as Bull turned too. Bull’s face was craggy with exhaustion and tight with pain, but his jaw split in a wide, pleased grin.

“Dorian!”

“You are –“ Dorian gestured at the bandages.

“He’s fine,” said Lavellan dryly. “We slayed a-“

“We slayed a dragon!” Bull bellowed. “Where’d Krem get off to? Rocky? I have to tell-“

“You have to rest,” Lavellan interrupted firmly. “The only one of the Chargers you should see is Stitches.”

“Yeah!” said Bull eagerly. “Tell him to bring Skinner and Grim and-“

“Krem is with them,” Lavellan reminded him.

Iron Bull tried to get off the cart, but Lavellan restrained him (nominally) with a hand to his arm. “Just rest,” she laughed. “They’ll send a clean out crew for the bones.”

“Oh please let me keep one, boss,” Bull said hopefully. “A really big horn would be good above the bed.”

Dorian exchanged a glance with Lavellan.

“Don’t,” said Lavellan warningly when Bull opened his mouth to continue.

“He’s cheerful,” Dorian observed.

“He’s doped up,” Lavellan explained. “He needs to sleep it off and change the bandages. But he won’t sit still.”

“I’ll take him,” said Dorian, frowning. “Does he go in his room?”

“We don’t think he’ll make it up the stairs,” said Lavellan, covering a laugh. “They gave him the good stuff.”

“I am the good stuff!” Bull protested loudly.

“I’m assuming the Herald’s Rest is a bad place to put him in any case,” Dorian observed.

“Yes! Let’s go there!”

“Where are your rooms?” asked Lavellan innocently, as if she didn’t know a thing.

“Upstairs,” Dorian made a face at her. “And so are yours.”

“What about the barn?” asked Lavellan.

“That’s good,” Dorian nodded. “If Blackwall doesn’t mind.”

Lavellan looked at him strangely. “Leiliana told me Blackwall isn’t here.”

Dorian stared at her, agog. Surely he had just seen Blackwall….a few…days? Weeks? He shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he managed, and could feel Bull’s tense, quivering silence as he watched them. “I didn’t know.”

Lavellan only shook her head. “I’m off to talk to Leiliana now. Josephine might be there as well.”

 _And Cullen_ was left unsaid between them.

“I’ll make sure he gets to the barn,” said Dorian, climbing up next to Bull to keep him from leaping off the back, which he was clearly itching to do.

Lavellan circled the plow horse to talk to the driver, and Dorian felt the cart lurch. Lavellan pressed a bundle into his arms, and he recognized among it Bull’s possessions but also healing potions, salves, and rolls of white bandages.

“Have fun,” Lavellan smirked, and for the first time Dorian realized her black hair was bluish with black dragon blood.

Dorian flinched when Iron Bull threw an arm around him, squeezing him into his shoulder.

“Hey,” he slurred. “You look like shit.”

Dorian laughed out loud then, and realized as he did so it was the first time in more than a month. “So do you,” he assured Bull.

“Nah,” Bull said, waved a huge hand that almost tipped his center of balance out of the cart. Dorian held onto his waist, his arms straining with the certain knowledge that were Bull to fall, Dorian could not catch him. 

The cart jolted over a gopher hole and Bull sat back hard in the cart, wheezing at his injuries.

“You should have seen her, Dorian,” Bull whispered, actually misty eyed. “About fifteen dragonlings. All out for blood. Cassandra nearly pissed herself.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“No, she did. There was a point where she was on fire and she screamed something awful.”

Dorian made a face.

“They got her with the burn paste,” clarified Bull hastily. “And it was good to have Solas with us. He’s handy with the shields, or we might have all been killed.”

“You certainly tried,” Dorian said acerbically.

“Yeah, I saw my guts and everything,” said Bull cheerfully. “They’re really pink.”

Dorian felt sick at how cavalier Bull could be about almost dying.

“But Solas is a good guy. He packed me back together and gave me one of those slow regeneration potions. I was able to keep fighting five minutes later, even with just the bandages.”

“Maker, Bull, you could-“

“But I didn’t,” Bull interrupted. “Instead, I got to live like few men get to.”

“A foot away from dying?” Dorian guessed dryly.

“A foot away from glory!” Bull corrected, too loudly, and spooked the horse into trotting a few steps despite the load it was hauling.

The driver shot Dorian a frustrated look, but since they were at the barn, Dorian hardly minded. “Stay here,” he told Bull, knowing it was useless. He sighed, and then wove a small spell that would shock Bull if he tried to leave its confines.

Dorian hopped down then flitted into the barn, checking what condition it was in. There were a few benches and a firepit, and Dorian quickly turned two benches over as a guide for piling hay between them. The trestle benches kept the spray from floating wide, and Dorian threw a mostly clean horse blanket over it.

“All right, all right,” he yelled back to the yelps and winces of the Iron Bull, who was trying to hop down out of the cart, electricity arcing over his chest and scaring the horse.

Dorian took the spell off even as he neared, then quickly fade-stepped the distance when Bull staggered. Dorian grunted as he caught him up beneath an arm.

“Aww,” Bull mumbled cheerfully. “Thanks.”

“Just get to the…to the…hay,” puffed Dorian, concentrating on one foot in front of the other as he bore some of Bull’s weight.

Dorian wasn’t sure how, but there was a great deal of Bull turning around, Dorian heaving, and then Bull was sitting, half bemused and blinking in the hay on the ground. Dorian quickly piled wood into the fire pit and lit it with a thought. It blazed to light with thoughts: _the way his father sneered; the overwhelming sound of Haven collapsing; the –_

 _Katoh_ his mind supplied helpfully.

Dorian cursed, the fire went out.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Bull grandly. “Everybody has their off days. No big deal if you can’t perform-“

The fire roared up in a blaze, and Dorian had to hastily add more wood as Bull guffawed.

Dorian could tell it hurt, because each huge breath was punctuated by a gasp, and he could see the stains darkening over Bull’s stomach.

“Lay down,” he said waspishly.

“Why do you look like shit?” Bull asked, as he unprotestingly allowed himself to be laid out on the blanket.

“I don’t.” Dorian had taken care with his makeup after Vivienne’s warning of his slipping act.

“Like…you’re pretty,” Bull said, wincing as Dorian carefully sliced through the bandages with a knife instead of fire. He didn’t trust his control. He began peeling back bandages, wishing Bull would stop talking. “But…you’re…all empty…like…like a fire…went out.” Bull managed between breaths.

Dorian hissed at the damage. The claw marks were ugly, full of weeping pus and clotted blood. The skin on either side was going white with necrotic damage. He glanced at Bull.

“Would you like if I put you to sleep?”

“Nah,” grunted Bull. “I’m good.”

“Bull.”

“Dorian,” Bull teased. “I only just got back, are you so tired of my company?”

Dorian said nothing, and Bull stopped joking at once, his blue eye dark and blown wide with the painkillers. “Oh,” he said, and his voice sounded strange, and small. “Oh.”

Dorian found himself suddenly on the verge of tears. _Katoh_ his mind whispered. _End it, please._

“You shouldn’t use that so much,” said an unexpected voice, and Bull raised his head even as Dorian spun on his knees.

Cole was across the fire, sitting on a log, as if he had always been there.

“Cole,” snapped Dorian. “Now is not a good time.”

“I’m helping,” Cole explained.

“You are not,” said Dorian waspishly.

“The Inquisitor said I could help.”

“Help _people_ , Cole, not us,” Dorian seethed.

“Let the kid talk,” grunted Bull.

“Don’t,” warned Dorian.

“You told him to close his eyes about the paint on the walls,” Bull pointed out, and Dorian cursed himself for telling Bull about that.

“Yes,” Cole offered helpfully. “And Dorian’s gone all white.”

“I’m hardly white,” fumed Dorian.

“Let the kid speak,” Bull said again.

Cole smiled, and Dorian had a sneaking suspicion that Cole was picking up subtle human emotions like triumph. It was very disconcerting. Also highly annoying.

“You wanted him to have space, in his mind,” Cole told Bull. “He was so loud before: _hungry, bored, I’ve made a horrible mistake, my father he’s nothing, my father he’s everything. I want to go home I want to run to run to RUN TO -“_

“Cole!” And Dorian didn’t meant to shout, but felt Bull’s hand on his knee where he knelt by him. Dorian couldn’t turn his head. Couldn’t look kindness in the face, only shivered beneath the touch, and he felt the fingers grip on a little harder, like maybe he was going to float away.

“And then he made a lot of space,” said Cole simply. “He figured out how to run, like he wanted.”

“What?” managed Bull.

“ _Katoh_ ,” said Cole. “All end.”

Dorian felt his shoulders freeze around his ears. Felt Bull’s fingers leave his knees.

He wanted to scream at Cole: _get out! GET OUT!_

“Thank you Cole,” said Bull, and to Dorian’s complete disbelief, the spirit left nothing behind him. He was only sitting by the fire, and then he was not, and there was only Dorian’s back to Bull, only the prickling feeling of eyes on his spine.

Dorian busied himself with uncorking a potion.

“Dorian.”

Dorian felt goosebumps raise up all over his skin, but he only glanced at Bull like it was nothing, like he didn’t care.

“Hold still,” he said. “This will not be pleasant.”

Bull grunted in acquiescence that his injuries took precedence, but Dorian was not gentle. The antiseptic fizzed on contact with the open wounds, and Dorian could see it burning away the edges of the gashes so that Bull let out a long, long guttural hiss until Dorian could wet down new cloth bandages with more healing potions to lay over the cuts. He bound him back up in silence.

Bull watched him, and Dorian noticed sweat was standing out on his brow, his pupil still dilated widely with the drug.

“You can’t run from everything, you know,” he said quietly.

Dorian’s fingers stilled, his head bowed out of Bull’s pinning gaze. “I can try,” he quipped, but it fell soft and flat, and Bull’s warm thumbs were on Dorian’s wrists and Dorian was shaking.

“Come here.”

“You’re injured.”

"It’s not that bad.”

“You almost died.”

“I almost die all the time. Hasn’t stuck yet.”

“Bull-“

“C’mere.”

“You’re too high.”

“Nah.”

“No you are-“

“Nah,” Bull said, but this time with an edge. “You think these drugs are worth shit in Par Vollen? These are weak.”

“You don’t have to-“

“Just lay down, you stupid pretty fool.”

Dorian felt something waver around his mouth. At first he thought it was a smile, but by the way Bull’s eye softened, he suspected it was the opposite. To cover his own confusion, Dorian crawled up next to Bull and lay stiffly in the hay in the stiflingly dusty smell of the horse blanket.

“You’ve been missing me, huh,” said Bull, wrapping his arm with a wince around Dorian.

“I’ve been busy.”

“I know. I can tell.”

“Can you?”

“I don’t think you can let down your shoulders. You look like you're wearing a coat hanger.”

Dorian found a smile surprised out of him from somewhere, and Bull squeezed him fondly when he caught a glimpse of it.

“I’ve resorted to standing,” he admitted.

“You’ll strain your eyes that way.”

“So my mother used to tell me,” teased Dorian.

“Bet you look hot in glasses.”

“I look hot in everything.”

“You look hot in nothing.”

Dorian flushed and Bull chuckled, pleased he had scored a point.

“You should sleep,” Dorian offered after a moment, with nothing left to say. “You need to grow new skin.”

“Yeah, yeah,” mumbled Bull, and Dorian could tell, weak drugs or not, he was already halfway there.

Long minutes passed. “I did miss you,” Dorian half mumbled into Bull’s skin. He was sleepy himself; he hadn’t realized how much of his sleep time was walking the Fade until he was here, breathing in soft sweet hay and elfroot healing potions, Bull's wiped down skin. Something bitter and metallic.

Bull was asleep. Dorian closed his eyes and pulled Bull’s arm more securely over him. Without warning, he began to shiver uncontrollably, his stomach swooping. He recognized the signs of a migraine before it started and squeezed his eyes shut tighter, Bull’s fingers between his own.

“You’re okay,” said Bull sleepily, as if sensing Dorian’s distress even while mostly asleep. Dorian never needed to confide his nightmares to Bull. Bull never asked.

Dorian made a noncommittal noise and shut his eyes tighter. His head was hit with a wave of nausea and blinding pain. He flinched in the straw, making a sharp rustling sound and Bull’s arm left him suddenly.

Dorian squinted against the brightness of day, searching for Bull, but he had only reached over with a grunt, and retrieved the last healing potion.

“Drink it,” he instructed.

“I’m okay,” Dorian managed.

Bull harrumphed. “Drink it. You’re letting your guard down, and all those times shelving the things you didn’t want to deal with are about to slam into your head.”

“They did,” Dorian said weakly.

“Just fucking drink it.”

“I-“

“Dorian.”

Dorian laughed slightly at himself. “Thanks,” he managed, and then downed the flask in one go. Half to himself: “Why am I like this?”

“You mean, always fighting?”

Dorian nodded.

“I mean, you’re always fleeing the other stuff. Gotta stand and fight sometimes. Figures you would pick people helping you to rail against.”

“You’re too clever by half,” groaned Dorian into Bull’s skin.

“Shut up and go to sleep,” said Bull. “Your head needs it.”

“I’m fine,” protested Dorian, but the lie was so weak he smiled into Bull’s side.

“I know,” Bull said, in a very patronizing tone.

Dorian was going to protest it, it was insulting to be talked down to, as if he wasn’t –

As if –

And then, Bull’s heavy arm fell back over him, and Dorian slipped his hand into Bull’s, and held on as he shivered, Bull’s body heat slowly lapping at his resolve as he slipped further and further into sleep.

* * *

When Dorian awoke, it was dark. The blanket was warm, but the large cavity impression in the hay next to him indicated Bull had left.

There was a flickering light on the wooden ceiling of the barn, and Dorian watched it for a while, his mind strangely calm. He hadn’t dreamed, and that was unusual. Usually his dreams were full of anxieties, or else he walked through the Fade, careful not to touch anything, then waking as if he hadn’t slept at all. He tried not to rely on sleeping potions. He had gone through a phase where he hadn’t been able to sleep without them, and his father had caught wind of it. The ensuing fight had been rife with accusations of addiction and dishonor.

Dorian tried not to use them after that, preferring to string himself along on lyrium and caffeinated teas.

Now though, he breathed in and winced at the sharp pain under his breastbone. The sound made the shadows shift on the ceiling, and then Bull’s face was backlit in the darkness, staring down at him.

Dorian scrambled to sit up. “You’re not supposed to be up!” he sputtered. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Nah,” Bull waved a hand. “These potions are great. I’m good.”

“No, you can’t be-“

“Plus Vivienne came by,” smiled Bull cheekily. “She helped patch me up.”

Dorian’s head was foggy, the way it always was after, as his father used to call them, “one of his little headaches.”

“Did she?”

Bull stood up in the firelight, and Dorian could see newly healed shiny skin across Bull’s belly. “Good as new,” he beamed. “And some good scars to boot. To think I can tell people I fought a _dragon_.”

“Vivienne was here?” Dorian was slow to catch up.

“Yeah.”

“And I slept through it?” He felt he should have been embarrassed that Vivienne had caught him snuggled in next to Bull, or even snoring, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about anything except how dry his mouth was.

“Yep,” smiled Bull, stooping. He came up with his traveling canteen, and passed it wordlessly to Dorian. The thoughtfulness – the observation – behind the gesture made Dorian feel prickly inside his nose and stomach.

“Thanks,” he said instead.

Bull sat down again on a log round, and Dorian managed to struggle his way out of the hay and stagger over.

“You’re all dusty,” Bull observed.

“Mm.”

“C’mere.”

Dorian was getting used to hearing that, and he was still groggy from sleep. He let Bull pull him a few stumbling steps closer. Fondly, Bull carded his ungelled black hair. Bits of straw flaked out of it. Bull swiped down his robes with a broad hand and Dorian staggered in the resulting clouds of dust.

“Why,” sighed Bull.

“Why what?” Dorian was still drinking greedily from the canteen, though the water was warm from the firelight and tinny to the taste.

“Why do you let yourself get like this?”

“Like what?”

“Dorian.”

“Fine. Because I’m a masochist,” Dorian said humorlessly, tossing the empty canteen to the pile. “Happy?”

“We both know that’s not true,” said Bull with a wry smile. “Like you could go a day without complaining.”

“Ha,” was all Dorian’s wit could manage, and he sat on the log next to Bull and stared dazedly into the fire.

“Was what Cole said true?”

“Hmm?”

“Dorian.”

“Cole?”

“About _katoh_.”

“Oh.” A momentary consideration. “Yes.”

“You know you shouldn’t use it lightly.”

“I’m not,” protested Dorian.

“So thinking about things you don’t want to think about warrants a safeword?”

“You should hear the things I don’t want to think about,” said Dorian lightly.

“I’d like to.”

“I did walk into that one.”

“You tend to.”

“I know.”

“It’s almost like you want me to care.”

“I do,” admitted Dorian, then stopped, embarrassed. He didn’t glance at Bull, but threaded his fingers together. “I don’t want you to stop caring,” he amended instead. “What you said before…I don’t want to… to stop.”

“Neither do I.”

“But I don’t want to continue.”

“With the healing and wellness stuff?’

“Stuff,” scoffed Dorian. “Garbage.”

“That garbage let you sleep.”

“Exhaustion let me sleep.”

“And why are you working yourself to exhaustion when I’m not around?” Bull could make anything sound lewd.

“The world might end,” Dorian responded tartly, but the argument was flat. They weren’t deep enough in melancholy to be too dispirited about the inevitable fall of empires.

“Let me see your back.”

“What?”

“You said you couldn’t even work sitting down.”

“Did I?”

“Dorian.”

“Well, it’s a barn.”

“Yeah, and?”

“And it’s dirty.”

“I could go a lot of ways with a line like that.”

“You're incorrigible.”

“You’re the only person who would say that word aloud.”

“Don’t play dumb with me, you big ox,” said Dorian fondly.

“Then don’t try to distract me,” Bull said absently, already running his hands down the cloth robes Dorian had on, feeling down his back and grunting when he found the knot of solid muscle spanning a hands width over Dorian’s lower back.

“I’m very good at that,” Dorian said hopefully.

“Hmm?” said Bull.

“I said-“ Dorian began, and then rolled his eyes. “Oh, well done.”

“Take this off,” said Bull, tugging on the robes.

“It’s a barn,” Dorian repeated.

“It’s night,” said Bull.

“It’s a –“

“Take off your damn clothes.”

Dorian’s cock twitched and Bull smiled at him angelically like he knew exactly what had happened.

He probably did, damn him. It seemed the Iron Bull was always right.

Dorian shrugged out of his over robes, leaving him in only his trousers and boots.

“Stand up, back to me,” Bull said, his voice extremely low. It sent shudders down Dorian’s spine and prickled the gooseflesh down his back. Bull laughed as he ran big hands over the matching dimples Dorian had. “You’re wrecking your lumbar,” he said instructionally, and Dorian whipped his neck around to protest before he yelped, having put a crick in it. He tried to turn forwards again and could only move about two thirds of the way.

Bull laughed smugly and Dorian made a face. “This has nothing to do with you,” he informed him.

“Then what happened? You tried to screw your head on too tight?”

“I was learning to meditate,” said Dorian loftily. “While you were gone. Vivienne said she couldn’t teach me anymore.”

“Yeah? And why’d she say that, do you think?”

“Because,” said Dorian, gratefully surrendering his jaw to Bull’s two hands. “I’m so good-“

He made a small sound in the back of his throat when Bull cracked his neck. Pain whited out his vision, and when he could see again, he could see Bull’s face, studying his own, the blue on blue eye flicking around his features, pulling at the disguise he had on. He knew Bull could see the deep cakes of makeup beneath his eyes, the smeared lash tint, the grey of his lips. Poor hydration. Pain from the after effects of his migraine. He flushed, feeling ugly.

“Why won’t you let me take care of you,” Bull said, his voice barely a murmur.

“Because I think I do such an excellent job.” Dorian was breathless.

“I wouldn’t let you get this bad.”

“I don’t know what-“

Bull dug his fingers into the massive ache at the bottom of Dorian’s bare back and he leapt forward with a yelp of pain right into Bull’s chest. He squeezed Dorian hard then, and Dorian felt his back crack.

“Oh,” he said, then rolled his neck and twisted his back experimentally. “Thank you.”

“Please let me take care of you,” murmured Bull, running a careful thumb under one of Dorian’s puffy eyes. “You haven’t let anyone do it for so long.”

Dorian froze beneath Bull’s fingers, feeling his mouth press tightly. Bull _would_ bring that up, instead of pretending Dorian had never said it.

“You won’t like it,” he promised.

“I’d like to make that decision.”

“I’m afraid you won’t like it,” amended Dorian.

“I know.”

“And? No promises?”

“I can’t promise anything I can’t see.”

“Very convincing. And what, I’m supposed to give you everything and just…take it on faith?”

“Not on faith,” Bull smiled then, and drew back, dropping his hands from Dorian’s face. Dorian felt the cool night air slap his cheeks. He hadn’t realized how warm his skin had grown.

Bull was riffling through his pack, and then pulled out something in a fist. “I brought you a present,” he said. “Like I promised.”

“Something pretty?”

“To me.”

“A mirror?”

“I said pretty to me,” Bull teased. “Not pretty to you.”

He held out the flat of his hand and Dorian peered at it, nonplussed.

“It’s a tooth,” he said after a long pause.

“A dragon’s tooth.”

“Please tell me you didn’t pull this out while she was alive.”

“I tried, but that’s when I got gored.”

“You idiot,” but Dorian’s voice was fond. “I’ve never seen one, you know. This really belongs in a museum.”

There was a long, hesitant silence, and Dorian glanced up to see Bull looking lost.

“I love it,” Dorian assured him hurriedly. He didn’t, not really. It was an animal tooth and he had been hoping for jewelry, but –

“In Par Vollen,” and Bull’s voice was unexpectedly husky and quiet. Something was running through it like a river, tumbling his words out of him. “There’s a myth. You break a dragon’s tooth in half, and a pair of lovers wears it. To show love is fierce and unbreaking. That it’ll fight like hell. That it will burn you up. Roar out of you.”

“Sounds violent,” said Dorian faintly. He wasn’t sure what Bull was getting at, but he had used the word _love_.

“It is,” Bull assured him, but with a broad, excited smile, like maybe this was the best part. “I wanted to bring you the tooth because…because I want you to see that I get why you fight it. I do. But I want to fight with you, you know? Like we do out there. Fire and steel.”

Dorian wasn’t sure why he was getting so emotional. This wasn’t usual behavior for Iron Bull, but he couldn’t mean what it sounded like he meant. Not now, now while he was Ben Hassrath and Dorian was from Tevinter. Not here away from both their homelands, or even less likely in their homelands. It was impossible, it was a pretty speech, it was –

Bull carefully took the tooth in two fingers and split it lengthwise down the middle as easily as breaking chalk.

“How did you-“

“I scored it first,” Bull admitted, and Dorian was astonished to see he was blushing. “I wanted to make sure both pieces were good. That they both still looked like a tooth. I guess you could say I picked how we fit together.”

“Well,” said Dorian, selecting the piece with the hollow in it, where Bull seemed to fit. “I certainly wouldn’t have done it right.”

“You’re doing okay,” Bull said shyly. “But you like it?”

“I don’t know what to say,” Dorian said, still completely broadsided.

“Say you’ll take it.”

“I’ll take it.”

“It comes with terms and conditions.”

And Dorian laughed then, breaking the tension, and the Iron Bull smiled his crooked, over the ear half smile.

“What doesn’t?” Dorian finally managed.

“Yeah, so. You can set yours. But mine are that you have to let me take care of you. And you can tell me to fuck off and all that, but…unless you use _katoh_. And please do use it. But.”

“Don’t push you out,” Dorian prompted.

“Yeah,” Bull seemed relieved. “I don’t want to fight about it. I want to fight with you.”

“Back to back?”

“Yeah. Together against others.”

“What if the person we’re fighting is me?”

“Then let me do it,” said Bull simply. “I’ll help take you apart so you can see the pieces you want to hit.”

Dorian wrapped his fingers around the tooth. He felt it cut his palm but didn’t care.

“And?” Iron Bull prompted.

“And?” Dorian echoed.

“Now your conditions.”

“Mine?” Dorian laughed. His mind was curiously blank. Usually his thoughts, always racing, seemed to have deserted him. He groped for words: “You can’t keep ripping up all my pillows,” he managed.

Bull laughed too, throwing his head back. “Light terms.”

“And…and…I don’t want to see my father,” blurted Dorian. “Not now, and not ever. Even if he’s dying. Even if he begs. Please. I’m serious. I won’t change my mind. Don’t argue for him.”

Bull stopped laughing at once, his eye gentle and serious. “Never,” he swore. “I’m on your side. Always.”

“What happens,” Dorian asked in a small voice. “When all this is over? When there is no Inquisition?”

“You mean if we win?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh I wouldn’t worry about that,” said Bull cheerfully.

“Oh _excellent_ ,” said Dorian witheringly.

“Well, hey, if we all get out of this alive,” Bull seemed to not give this much credence, “Why don’t we figure it out then? If you want me in Tevinter, I’d have a good time scaring the ladies.”

“ _Scaring_ them,” said Dorian scathingly. “Right.”

Bull winked wolfishly at him, and Dorian dissolved into helpless laughter.

“Now you’re going to let me take care of you.” This time it wasn’t a question, it was a command, and Dorian felt himself shiver all over in anticipation.

Bull’s smile was slow and warm. Dorian felt something inside him heat up the same way.

“Give me the pieces. I’ll put them on a thong later.”

Dorian handed his sharp dragon’s tooth over. He saw as it left his palm it was smeared with blood. Bull saw too, but didn’t say anything, only glanced back at Dorian as if asking he had done it on purpose. Dorian shook his head, and Bull smiled, nicking his own thumb, bloodying his own piece, before setting them back into his pack.

There was a long, spine tingling moment of thrilling dread as Bull looked at Dorian, and Dorian stared back.

Then Bull crossed the fire in long steps and lifted Dorian bodily back to the pile of hay and the blanket and laid him down as gently as a foal.

“On your stomach,” Bull ordered.

Dorian felt his hips tense at the command. Surely now, after weeks, Bull would finish him. Dorian glanced over his shoulder, a question in his eyes, and Bull smiled a fiendish, huge smile.

“Oh, I don’t have the control for that tonight,” he assured him. “I’ve missed you too much not to taste you on my tongue.”

Dorian dropped his head with loud breaths between his propped elbows, waiting.

There was a rustling sound back in Bull’s things, and then the slick feeling of something covering him. It smelled vaguely sweet.

“What is this?” Dorian wrinkled his nose. “Fly salve?”

“Do you want to wait for me to cross the castle in the dark?” Bull grunted.

Dorian laughed. The salve was made of plants, and smelled sweet to him, but like poison to insects. Adan had made it for them, before he had given up his position, his close call at burning alive leaving him the shell of the man he was.

“I have to do something about your back first,” Bull said into the skin at Dorian’s throat.

Dorian hadn’t heard him creep up and shivered all the way down his body. Bull made a responding sound in his throat.

“Have you had anyone else while I was gone?”

“What?”

“How long has it been?”

“There’s no one else. I never –“

“Never?” and Bull seemed surprised, his voice drawing back as if he had sat up on his heels, though Dorian was staring out the side of the barn towards the standing stone and the stalls of the mounts.

“No.”

“Only me?”

“Only you.”

Bull grunted, but Dorian knew him well enough to hear the guttural lust beneath the tone.

“Shit,” he said after a minute. “Then I’ll stop.”

“You don’t have to,” Dorian said quickly. “I know there’s a lot –“

“You’re enough,” Bull said simply. “You’re enough for me.”

Dorian dropped his burning face back between his elbows and yelped in surprised at the first firm push between his shoulder blades, down his spine, to the small of his back. He squirmed against the contact, his hips popping up.

“Do you know why your lower back hurts?”

“I hunch over the table.”

“Partly.”

“Partly?”

“Partly because you’ve already slammed everything into your hips and they can’t hold anymore.”

“That’s absurd.”

“It’s like water. Goes through all available spaces first. Down around your hips, holding the tension in your strongest muscles first. Backs are weak. That’s why they hurt so easy.”

“And I suppose you’re going to prove this to me?” Dorian asked challengingly.

Bull chuckled in the darkness, and Dorian swallowed against his suddenly dry throat. “I’d like to,” Bull said finally. 

“How do you know so much then, if you’re always getting hurt?” Dorian managed, with only the smallest sound escaping, as Bull licked the hunched curve of a collarbone. He was looming over the back of Dorian, thrilling him and making his arms shiver with the effort.

“Eh, you get to know the body pretty well when you’re hitting it,” said Bull offhand. “Takes a lot more effort to cut through the hips than through the spine.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“Hey, at least I’m trying to keep you together.”

“Or take me apart,” Dorian said, his voice half audible.

Bull chuckled again. “I’ll do both, how about that?” he promised. “Like two pieces of a dragon’s tooth.”

Dorian dropped his head between his shoulders again, his goosebumps prickling up in the sudden draft of air as Bull sat back up.

“Arms down by your sides, yeah, that’s good.”

Dorian tried not to flush at the praise Bull offered so offhand, to anyone, for things like passing him a plate of food. But this time he knew Bull meant it, because the brief gratifying pressure of his hand against the back of Dorian’s made him blush in the darkness.

Bull began by pressing straight down into Dorian’s lower back until all the air was pressed out of him. Just when he thought he wouldn’t be able to breathe again, his back cracked half a dozen times, both he and Bull grunting in satisfaction.

Bull proceeded to have Dorian prop up one of his legs on a knee, outstretched, or drawn up as he popped even more of his joints, and then began to work the knots out of his skin. Dorian was amazed at how deeply Bull dug on his hips. He hadn’t even realized how tight the tops of his thighs were until Bull began to bruise the small grain-like knots out of his muscles.

“Sit up,” Bull said, drawing closer, and Dorian sat up, turning his back to Bull, feeling oddly shy in the darkness. The fire was burning low into embers, and Dorian thought about reviving it, but liked the way the waning moon glowed through the gaps in the wooden boards of the barn.

He hissed through his teeth when Bull tilted his neck slightly too far against the tension and Bull clucked at his range of motion. They communicated without words, in prodding fingers and grunts and gritted teeth and gentle swats to remind him to relax.

Bull’s fingers in the crescent under Dorian’s shoulder blades nearly drew him up off the ground, but Bull grounded him with the other hand, twisting his shoulder they way he might have a doorknob to angle the shoulder blades for his fingers to dig out the tension. When it came to the thick cord of muscle from Dorian’s neck to his collarbone, Bull finally spoke.

“How did you even manage this?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking ab-“ Dorian began loftily, then cut off with a yelp when Bull pinched down with two fingers.

“You know you’re supposed to be able to take the skin of this part of your shoulder in your hand.”

“No you aren’t.”

“I’ll show you.”

The following twenty minutes made Dorian’s right shoulder go numb, his fingers twitching in his lap as Bull carefully tilted his head, stretching long muscles and tracing them to their ends attached to his shoulders. Bull probed gently up under his jaw, behind his ear, and even under the delicate top to his collarbone that could be snapped as easily as a thought.

By the end of it, Dorian was boneless in the horse blanket, which smelled of hay and elfroot and the clean scent of Iron Bull.

“Look,” said Bull happily, pulling on the neck muscles attached to Dorian’s shoulder. Dorian put his hand up to feel how soft they were beneath his fingers, the skin warm from Bull’s hands.

“And compare it,” said Bull, guiding Dorian’s limp hand to his left side, which was still as tightly strung and resistant as a bow.

“This proves nothing,” Dorian mumbled, but let Bull work his other side into jelly. By the time Bull had finished both his shoulders, the fire had burned itself out, and the moonlight was filtering through the slats of the barn in lancing white shafts.

Dorian turned onto his back with a contented squirm and Bull sat up straighter from where he had been tucking the now empty jar of salve back into his pack.

“Don’t you look like a purring cat,” Bull chuckled.

“How are your hands?”

“My hands?”

“That was almost an hour.”

“Oh. Yeah. I mean, they’re okay.”

“You want me to rub them?”

Bull seemed suddenly shy. “You don’t have to-“

“Let me,” insisted Dorian. “Or does this mean I can’t take care of you at all now?”

Bull smiled in the dark, and Dorian could feel it rather than see it as he crawled over the hay to sit next to Dorian. Dorian felt Bull place a hand, palm up, in his waiting ones. He went through the discarded pockets of his robe until he found a small vial of stoppered oil. It was steeped in orange blossoms, and he usually used it for cologne.

“You had that the whole time?” Bull remarked dryly.

“It’s very expensive,” sniffed Dorian, working into the skin of Bull’s hands. They were calloused, and by the way Bull shifted in place, he had some arthritis already. Dorian made a note to rub his hands more often, embarrassed he had never offered before.

“You’re good,” Bull observed with some surprise.

Dorian laughed. “Only on hands and feet. It comes with the Tevinter habit of keeping one’s nails trim.”

“I assume the culture shock was pretty bad.”

“When Blackwall took off his boots the first time, I nearly retched,” Dorian confirmed. “But you’re very good about it,” he added, somewhat shyly.

“Yeah, sloppiness isn’t exactly allowed in the Qun,” said Bull. “Something about always being a Qunari representative or something.”

Dorian fell silent, switching to the heel of the other hand with another splash of the expensive oil. He didn’t ask Bull how their relationship was going to fit under the Qun, whether it was a secret, or what was going to happen. Neither did Bull offer.

It was enough, it seemed, that it was now.

 _Bull’s probably right_ , Dorian thought morosely. _We’ll die and it won’t even matter._

“You’re quiet.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not mad.”

“I know I just-“

“Say sorry?”

“Sorry.”

“Ha.”

“Not my finest.”

“I’ll let you try again,” said Bull with a suggestion of something threading his voice.

Dorian took the unspoken invitation and reached his hand up in the dark to pull on Bull’s horn, urging his mouth down. Bull complied gladly, and they tumbled back together onto the blanket, Bull careful to prop himself up on an elbow.

“You’re injured,” Dorian remembered, a few breathless seconds later as Iron Bull nudged his way down to his chest.

“Hmm?”

“Bull, stop,” Dorian said fondly, and Bull looked up, frowning.

“What?”

“Switch places with me?”

“What?”

“Just switch with me.”

Bull didn’t grumble, but Dorian pushed him back with the heel of his hand and Bull grinned at him.

“Hey now,” he said. “I don’t have any of my gear.”

“Hush,” Dorian chided. “I just want my turn.”

“Your turn?”

But Dorian didn’t have to answer. He was running the soft tips of his fingers over the Iron Bull’s arms, through the dips and curves of them, down his sides, counting the bands of muscle over his ribs, tracing it down the v of his hips, beneath his pants.

Dorian flicked the buckles on the back of Bull’s belt and pulled. The leather came out from under Bull’s back easily. Bull said nothing, only watched Dorian with a curious expression as Dorian continued his exploration, down each of Bull’s legs through the pants until he pulled off his boots, revealing surprisingly delicately boned feet, the swell of his ankles. Bull huffed a laugh at the ticklish inside of the curve of Dorian’s thumbnail.

Going back up, Dorian pulled the pants off, Bull helping by arching upwards. Bull’s cock was heavy and thick on one leg, but Dorian ignored it in favor of running his hands along the huge muscles in Bull’s thighs, across the new dragon scars on his abdomen, up over the swell of his chest and the cording in his neck to cradle his jaw.

Bull tried to speak, but failed. And Dorian felt the same in that moment in the darkness, the soft glow of moonlight somewhere outside the barn. It felt like only he and Bull were awake in all the world, their breath hot in the cooling air, and Dorian leaned down and kissed him, crawling up his body and slotting one knee between Bull’s legs for leverage.

Iron Bull’s big arms came up to encircle Dorian’s back and he pulled him in more tightly.

“What do you want?” Bull murmured.

Dorian turned his head to graze at the underside of Bull’s jaw with the tip of his teeth.

“For you to finish what you started.”

“How much of a mess do you want to be?”

And in the darkness, in the surety that Bull was joking and yet not joking, Dorian leaned in to whisper into the soft shell of Bull’s ear: “Absolutely ravaged.”

Bull immediately sat up, and the tenderness was replaced by fast skimming hands, everywhere, between Dorian’s legs, down his back, stripping off his pants, his shoes, tangling in his hair. Bull bit the places he had just massaged, the soft flesh of Dorian’s shoulders easily moving into Bull’s wet mouth. Bull worked his way up Dorian’s throat as his hands found Dorian’s cock, mostly hard, but then dry worked him up to a frenzy until he was panting, straining on his knees, sitting up off his heels while Bull ran his tongue around Dorian’s navel.

Bull dumped half the bottle – several gold pieces – into his hand and slicked Dorian’s cock down so quickly and so well Dorian mewled in protest as Bull bit his nipple hard at the same time, causing Dorian to jerk forward into the stimulation.

Bull didn’t speak, didn’t direct Dorian, only handled him like a folding table, lifting him easily to lay across his own broad lap, his cock curving up and repositioned against his stomach, Dorian in the space between his knees. With one hand, Bull held Dorian behind the shoulders, with the other he wordlessly yanked Dorian’s ankle up over his shoulder. Dorian gasped at the first blunt fingertip around his sensitive hole. Bull hadn’t used his mouth, but the finger was in no hurry.

Bull pressed in hot circles around the ring of tight muscle while Dorian leaked precum all over his own chest. Bull leaned down to taste it, grinning as Dorian jerked hopefully towards his mouth before he drew away. As he did, he stopped his torture of Dorian’s hole and slipped the first part of his finger inside to the ring of tight muscle. Dorian breathed out hard, suddenly so overstimulated he thought he might come.

Bull, watching his face, stilled at once. Dorian cursed him but forced his body to relax, his thigh muscles screaming from where he had tensed up. After half a minute of hearing his thundering heart calm, Dorian leapt upwards as Bull pushed his finger in unexpectedly all the way.

Dorian let out a ragged breath as Bull found the smooth prostate. The Iron Bull smiled angelically down at him and did not move.

“Come on,” Dorian snapped, his leg shaking against Bull's shoulder.

Bull skated a tender, slow finger over the prostate.

Dorian couldn’t help the long, liquid moan. He was gratified to feel Bull’s cock twitch against his arm.

Bull did not move his finger. He only stayed perfectly still, holding Dorian up with one hand, using the other to draw ever tightening spirals against Dorian’s prostate while he shifted, trying to move Bull’s finger the way he wanted it.

Once, Bull jabbed in and out, very quickly, and Dorian keened.

The sensation was too much, and when Bull kissed Dorian, Dorian could barely make his mouth work in response as he felt Bull’s hand slowly rocking inside him, the tiniest of wrist movements.

“More,” he managed raspingly. “Please.”

Bull looked at him steadily, and Dorian felt another finger at his hole.

“No,” he protested weakly. “That’s not fair. You haven’t done the good parts yet. You have to-“

But Bull had already pushed his way in, the stretch delicious and Dorian dropped his head back, his mouth half open. Bull stopped before the ring of muscle and Dorian rippled his hips, bearing down, trying to capture the tip and pull it upwards. But Bull did not comply.

He kept his fingers two apart and began widening them, one on the inside, and one the out.

Dorian groaned in frustration. Bull moved excruciatingly slowly.

Dorian felt sweat running down his sides and thrashed his head, seeking more stimulation. Without any more forewarning, Bull thrust both fingers deep, unerringly hitting Dorian’s prostate.

“Yes,” he begged. “Please.”

Bull set a quick pace then, in and out, scissoring Dorian open even as he tapped repeatedly against the prostate as Dorian pulled his knees up to his chest, wanting _more_ wanting _faster_ wanting _almost – Almost –_

Bull stopped moving, and Dorian’s hips stuttered. He looked at Bull.

The Iron Bull looked at him, half a smile carved into his face.

“Oh, fuck you,” Dorian fumed.

“You don’t think this would take _under an hour_ , do you?” Bull asked pleasantly. “I was thinking the rest of the night.”

Dorian felt his stomach flip at the idea. “Not if I may you come first.”

Bull laughed, and removed his fingers. Dorian whimpered at the loss.

“You’re funny.”

“I’m serious.”

“It’s not a bet if the odds aren’t fair.”

Dorian arched his eyebrow in his best Vivienne impersonation. “You doubt my abilities?”

“Just your willpower,” said Bull cheerfully. “I wanna suck your cock now.”

Dorian scrambled to his knees, but Bull only repositioned himself, laughing, so that Dorian could drop the head of his cock into Bull’s mouth as Bull lay back, guiding Dorian’s hips.

Dorian tested Bull’s tongue, which was warm and wet and soft. He was close already, dancing on the edge.

Bull let him dip almost all the way in, his gag reflex impressive. Dorian could feel the hot ring of muscle around Bull’s throat as he swallowed, and then laughed. And the vibrations made Dorian’s hips buckle. Bull’s hands were steady and they held him up.

Dorian began flexing his hips, a shallow thrust, as Bull licked and sucked him clean of the clear precum smearing his tip. But when he tried to shove his way, to seek the fast hard ending he was so close to achieving, Bull’s strong arms wouldn’t let him move. Only held him as Bull tortured him with tiny, enticing licks and hot open-mouthed kisses.

When Dorian was a trembling mess who couldn’t even support himself on his arms, Bull finally gestured towards himself.

Dorian, grateful for the distraction, fell to sucking Bull’s cock the best way he knew how. He had a lot of practice, and enjoyed the challenge of giving head to someone as big as the Iron Bull, and Bull had assured him he was the best blowjob he’d ever had. But Dorian wanted to push him. To test him. To take him to the edge, and to _win,_ and so he gulped Bull down as much as he would go and swallowed nonstop, pulsing hard against Bull until Bull was pulling back, pulling out, grunting, trying to hold Dorian’s shoulder as Dorian grinned, sloppy and wet mouthed at him, and Bull smashed the tiny vial of oil and took the rest for himself, slicking up and pulling Dorian to him while sitting.

Dorian guided Bull's cock between his own legs with trembling fingers, pushing himself down with shaking legs, then breathed out hard when he was settled.

Bull’s cock was larger, thicker, and infinitely fuller than anyone Dorian had ever been with. It jammed up against his prostate nonstop, and Dorian knew that Bull wasn’t moving because he could feel the tremors coming from inside of Dorian, his muscles straining to keep from tipping over the edge.

Large fingers held casually to his sac, just in case.

Dorian tried to kiss Bull, but changed his mind and bit down on his lip in annoyance when Bull rolled Dorian’s tight, full sac between his fingers.

Bull laughed against his face.

“You set the pace,” he murmured to Dorian.

Dorian tried to immediately pull off, but Bull’s hands were tight on his trembling thighs.

He glared at Bull accusingly. “Cheater.”

“Pull, Dorian, really, it’s like you aren’t even –“

Dorian pulled himself along Bull’s cock in the slowest, most aggravating way against the weight of Bull’s hands. Slamming himself back down was infinitely more satisfying, and Bull grunted at the sudden impact.

Dorian set a pace that started strong but after a few minutes slowed, each pull up growing painfully sensational, the extreme weight of him settling the dizzying factor to the edge.

“If you turn around, I’ll fuck you into the floor,” Bull murmured into his ear.

“No,” Dorian said stubbornly. “I'm still going to win this.”

Bull smiled at him, his eye gentle and kind, and Dorian hid his face in Bull’s collarbone, feeling the shift in angle even as Bull hummed appreciatively.

“I got it,” Bull said, and then picked Dorian up by the ass and began to bounce him so ferociously Dorian forgot how to say his own name. He knew he had little chance of keeping himself from coming, and his only chance was to bring Bull off first. He wrapped his arms around Bull’s neck and began whispering things into his ear.

Bull grunted. Usually he was the talker of the two, especially dirty, but Dorian had imagined a lot of ways to torture Bull in the month he had been gone.

“Do you remember,” Dorian hissed, hearing the slap of skin, his brain whiting out every second, “When you told me what I liked? And what everyone liked? And we fucked that first time?”

Bull was grunting, and Dorian knew he was fighting not to come. He bit Bull’s ear and Bull arched into Dorian, his arms trembling with the effort, before mastering himself and resuming the pace, slapping Dorian’s ass smartly for the trick.

“Well you never said what _you_ were into,” said Dorian in a dark voice. “And so I’ve had to guess. I’ve made a lot of guesses. Maybe you can tell me if they’re right. You like tying people up so you can see the empty spaces.”

Bull’s eye flicked to Dorian, widening in surprise, and Dorian grinned evilly at him.

“And I bet you’d like it if you fucked me over a table in the Herald’s rest, knowing anyone could walk in. The smell of the wood on my skin.”

Bull grunted.

“And the way you stroke your axe sometimes, I know you’re practicing for my cock.”

Bull almost laughed, but his breathing was getting strained.

“And I know you were going to take me apart, but maybe that was my plan for you,” Dorian said, his voice very low in Bull’s ear.

Bull sped up his pace, and Dorian’s breath hitched. _Two, three, four – five –_

Bull came with a gasp, looking so contrite and so angry with himself that Dorian actually laughed until Bull pulled out so quickly he whimpered.

Bull forced Dorian’s face to the hay, popping his hips up, and then began to lick his cock through his triangle of legs, holding his thighs apart with his horns. It was nowhere near enough stimulation, but without warning, Bull reinserted two of his fingers, the cum sluicing out of Dorian’s hole with a filthy squelch and began fondling the head of his cock.

Unable to get his arms under him, Dorian squealed against the sensation until Bull pushed his head so hard against the backs of Dorian’s legs his knees buckled, and Bull pulled long hot fingers down his cock in a tight fist until Dorian wasn’t sure which was up and which was the end ramming into his prostate and that he was going to –

Dorian realized vaguely that it was impossible to come for more than a minute. But time stretched elastically. He felt like he hadn’t ejaculated in weeks, and the sheer amount of cum spurting over Bull’s tight fist was staggering. Bull was praising him in awestruck words, half in Qunlat. His mouth was over Dorian’s deflating sac, but his nips and encouragement and licks were pushing more and more out of him. Dorian’s spine was rigid, his hips locked in place, and then finally, he was falling, falling into Bull’s arms as Bull rolled him over his own body and onto his back against bare hay.

It scratched.

He ignored it.

He drifted interminably. There was no water here. No way for Bull to clean this up, and yet when Bull finally stirred, Dorian groaned and threw out a hand. “Leave it,” he managed hoarsely. “Let’s scare some people in the morning.”

Bull laughed in the darkness, his hand easily finding Dorian’s. “How do you feel?”

“Hnnggg,” managed Dorian.

“I’m losing my touch. Usually there are more vowels.”

“You’ll have to try again,” sighed Dorian theatrically.

“Dawn isn’t here yet,” agreed Bull, rolling onto an elbow.

“No!” yelped Dorian, realizing too late what Bull meant, but Bull had already begun to kiss him, stroking long deft hands over Dorian’s messy, sensitive body. His hips jumped.

Bull took until dawn.

At dawn, they moved to the hayloft.

In clean hay, a filthy, besmirched Dorian slept in the crook of Bull’s arm. He did not dream, nor walk the Fade. _And_ , he thought to himself sleepily, victoriously, even if Bull had kept his ravaging promise in the hours after. _Bull was wrong. We might make it yet._

**Author's Note:**

> Any and all comments welcome. They light me up like a fade rift.


End file.
